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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jan 7, 2021 20:25:22 GMT
I wonder if the theatre setup was left 'as is' when the professional outfit stopped, has anyone been in a show there? It was quite flexible, they moved the seating around the space. A bit like the Menier in that regard. I missed it but I think they had a promenade Sweeney Todd as well.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jan 7, 2021 14:34:24 GMT
I was sat next to Sheridan Morley for Saturday Night, who promptly dropped and lost his pencil after five minutes, Not sure what his review came out like. Pippin was excellent. Also particularly liked Floyd Collins, Of Thee I Sing (with Gavin Lee), Hello Again, Is There Life After High School, Songs for a New World (with post show chat by JRB) and Rags (maybe my favourite production seen there).
The biggest disappointment was Anyone Can Whistle. Weak direction and possibly the most amateurish lighting design I’ve seen in a professional show (to be charitable, it may have been because of a board meltdown).
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Dec 20, 2020 19:35:02 GMT
The leak via journos (from health expert in government supposedly) was that schools had driven the variants rise. Makes sense as they were left totally exposed during lockdown 2. As lockdown 2 ended transmission also started to increase in older ages. Looking at today's figures this adult rise is now really gathering pace. We knew how young people and children were affected since September when schools opened fully but ignoring it has come back to bite those who did so (and as for those who demanded that children couldn't wear masks, well this is what you get). With it being school holidays that should help somewhat but it looks to have had a perfect breeding ground.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Dec 19, 2020 11:06:37 GMT
More generally, some theatre Twitter is coming across quite badly today, with its conspiracy-theorising and Allison Pearson-like desire to carry on as if covid wasn't killing people. I'm a hairy old Lefty but I don't think Tories want to see theatre die any more than the Centrists (which is where I think most theatremakers sit) and Left do. I think deep down people love to be the victim: if life isn't smooth and tranquil then there must be someone they can hold accountable for their woes. It can't ever be "sh*t happens"; there must be a perfect solution and if it isn't given to them then that has to be because someone is maliciously withholding it.
If there was a solution to this that would allow businesses to carry on as normal without resulting in many millions of deaths then someone would have found it. There's no question that many governments have made mistakes while trying to navigate their way through an unprecedented situation, but one thing we can be absolutely certain of is that there will never be a time when historians look back on 2020 and say "Those poor fools. If only they'd listened to the self-appointed experts on social media".
As an island nation there was a solution back in February but nobody with power or influence would countenance it. Close the borders, lockdown straight away, keep it going for as long as the virus was eradicated. Other island nations have done this, Taiwan, New Zealand, Isle on Man(!) etc. We had all the natural benefits but none of the will. If, god help us, this happens again soon, that should be the plan already in place.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Dec 19, 2020 10:42:33 GMT
Pretty glad to have the chance to see this when it's live streamed in January. It'll be interesting to see how this will feel. For other theatre the streaming process has seemed to slightly remove me from the experience, but assuming this is similarly multimedia as the other van Hove productions I've seen, the streaming process may add another layer. Either way, can't wait... ita.nl/en/shows/kings-of-war/1535263/From what I can recall there isn’t much use of a screen although my memory may be playing tricks on me.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Dec 1, 2020 13:40:23 GMT
Three Sisters, Ivanov, Platonov and Uncle Vanya are my favorite Chekhov plays but otherwise I've yet to see The Seagull that engaged me and I haven't seen The Cherry Orchard since the NT production 9 years ago. There was a touring Headlong production of The Seagull directed by Blanche McIntyre that I thought worked very well (saw it at Richmond). The one Chekhov that I struggle with is Ivanov, the rest are up there with the greatest plays in my opinion.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 21, 2020 11:29:50 GMT
Wow, anti-vaxxer and libertarian memes all popping up together... I reckon Laurence Fox is masquerading as a board member! To give the other side of the coin, just back from my booster as part of one of the trials. Yes, it's my body, and I believe in the benefits of participating as a wider good to society. Anyone who refuses to be vaccinated should be made to pay for all of their healthcare. ‘Freedom’ has consequences, otherwise it’s like not getting yourself insured and expecting a payout. Post war there was a much more communal expectation but we’ve devolved into a decadent phase in the last thirty/forty years or so. Not everyone but enough to be a societal threat.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 19, 2020 11:11:32 GMT
So what do we think the Government's response is eventually going to be regarding Christmas? Lots of reports saying we get five days off at Christmas 'in exchange' for a month lockdown in January, as though it's some kind of treat. Because they just don't have the nerve to actually put proper precautions in place in case they are accused of 'ruining Christmas'. The other point of course being that a lot of people will ignore restrictions whatever they are so it's an impossible situation to police. It needs a hard hitting advertising campaign (yes, I know, they are incapable of it, with all the weak messaging so far). Something about ‘giving’ would be good. ‘Christmas is a time for giving but this year is special. You can give your grandparents a funeral or a stay in hospital, you can give your siblings long covid and their kids can go into school and give their friends an illness which they can pass on to their parents! This Christmas, you can give life, you can give a future, all you have to do is stay home’. Many will have seen this but this set of German adverts are great. The essence being that you will be a hero if you do nothing.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 15, 2020 13:17:56 GMT
Oh wow. I wish I saw that. It sound very much the stage is similar to Joe Penhall’s Blue/Orange which was done later at the the same venue. The best set I've seen in there was for The Brecht play "Life of Galileo" where they literally turned it into a planetarium, a massive domed ceiling covering the entire auditorium onto which they projected the moon and stars and planets of the night sky showing their continuous movement as Galileo went about his task of proving the earth orbits the sun. It's a really dull play though. I don’t know, I think it held up well. The idea of denial of science being more and more important to us, sadly, It’s a shame the Sheen Hamlet wasn’t filmed in some way, a bit of variable casting but the whole idea worked very well. In terms of Shakespeare on screen, the whole of the Bogdanov Wars of the Roses from the eighties is on difficult to find DVDs but very much worth it. The Brook Hamlet with Adrian Lester is good, filmed at the Bouffe du Nord, his King Lear film with Paul Scofield is incredibly bleak but compelling. Going way back but a lovely musical Comedy of Errors from Nunn, with Judi Dench, filmed live in the seventies is on DVD. Adrian Noble’s Midsummer Night’s Dream from the nineties (the one with the dream imagery and lots of light bulbs) works pretty well. RSC Sher Winter’s Tale filmed live also worth a look.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 14, 2020 12:22:59 GMT
I hate to be a downer but there were over 30,000 new cases yesterday. I honestly can't see theatres reopening let alone places like pubs, as much as I want them to. Safety needs to come before the economy. We've only been in lockdown for a week. Some of what we're seeing is the effect of people's behaviour in October. The vast majority of cases take around a week to be symptomatic so, in the last week we are seeing the post half term effect, with schools back (and all that entails), possibly followed by a spike from those who couldn’t help but have one last night out. Looking at the very weak effect on measures such as mobility that we are seeing, it is questionable that this level of measures is enough to get R under one for any significant period.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 5, 2020 11:49:15 GMT
I think you underestimate the number of grandparents who live with grandchildren or help with childcare... I don’t actually. The majority of children do not live with grandparents. I accept grandparents do help with childcare, but if your kids are of an age where they need looking after, I believe grandparents are more likely to be younger grandparents - we aren’t necessarily talking about the higher end ages of the ‘at risk’ groups. You will also find this more in poorer families and cultures with multigenerational households.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 1, 2020 1:00:22 GMT
Honestly, what is the point in any of this if thousands of kids are mixing in schools? My thoughts exactly - though include universities as well. The whole point is to try to reduce the number of hospital admissions at any one time, yet the major sources of infection and spread are not being closed and those who are, on the whole, taking adequate precautions are losing their livelihoods again. You couldn't make it up. Thank goodness my hairdresser had last minute availability today...! Also, the work from home is not affecting the major sources of transmission among businesses as well. Manual workers in cramped and noisy conditions aren’t going to be sitting at home on furlough, those in food processing factories will still be the same.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 23, 2020 20:09:32 GMT
An article about people left without support is fine.
An article singling out someone who, it is claimed, does not deserve funding is not, where there is no consideration of the application that was made and the circumstances surrounding it.
Growing up in the working class you got used to this schtick. Turn people against each other and then sit back and say ‘look at them arguing among themselves’. Divide and rule. It stinks.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 23, 2020 9:50:52 GMT
Yes. It’s called ‘playing one off against the other’.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 15, 2020 10:49:07 GMT
A gennel is a ginnel (hard G). The phrase, ‘couldn’t stop a pig in a ginnel’, often used by my grandparents.
Breadcakes are teacakes, sometimes muffins or, occasionally, baps.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 5, 2020 12:51:56 GMT
I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere, but yesterday Punchdrunk did a 12-hour live episode of Sky's Wicker Man-like series The Third Day with a cast including Jude Law (who I hope is somewhere very warm and dry today!). It's available to view on Sky's Facebook page. I missed the first 3 hours yesterday, but I don't think you need to know the plot of the series to follow it. It was extraordinary, a real gamechanger in terms of how TV can approach storytelling and the weather just really added to the drama, some of those shots were breathtakingly beautiful/sinister. As for Jude Law, I hope he's got a good rest since. I imagine his Sunday was pretty much a write off! Punchdrunk have done better than most at the moment, given their multidiciplinary spread. They've been able to do a young people's show in Australia, this live TV special with the cast pretty much isolating together for a week or more in their own bubble, keeping working on their gaming/theatre hybrid plans and now China has told them they can expand Sleep No More in Shanghai to 75% capacity. They've been somewhat lucky in being in countries that have attacked the virus effectively but it pays to have eggs in different baskets.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 5, 2020 12:41:18 GMT
Thw two things go hand in hand, the economy will suffer unless the virus is under control. Just saying 'go to the cinema' (Johnson's latest layer of confusion upon confusion) is not enough. People realise what is necessary and/or safe and change their behaviour accordingly.
Beat the virus down to near zero and people will start to go out and spend more. It doesn't work the other way around.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 2, 2020 15:06:10 GMT
Use of the term stagy/stagey has long referred to being 'fake', 'shallow'. It's the first thing I think when I see the term used in any context. 'Artsy' has long been similarly negative, meaning 'pretentious'.
I presumed people used them to reclaim the terms. Is that right?
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 28, 2020 10:49:03 GMT
People seem to have missed the point about iOS and the app. The point I was making is that if the device doesn't support the required functionality then there's nothing the developers of the app can do about it. If you need to upgrade the operating system then you need to upgrade it. The app can't do something if the phone won't let it. And what are they supposed to rely on if not an app? It's not as if they can expect everyone to manually exchange details with everyone they're close to for more than 15 minutes. It needs to happen automatically, so what better than a pocket-sized computer that many people carry with them all the time? It's true that not everybody has them but what else is there? What would they have done before smartphones existed? Would they have perhaps thought about an approach that didn’t rely on smartphones? Couldn’t they also do that now? Or are they just going to totally ignore the proportion of the population who can’t use the app, and hope we don’t spread the virus? Does anyone know? Has anyone actually explained what the strategy is for non-app users? Do we not matter? Could this be communicated to us in some way? Perhaps those signs and text messages telling everyone to download the app could explain what to do if you can’t? They would rely on human track and trace, they would ignore the excellent NHS version at local level that finds nearly all contacts and spend ridiculous amounts of money reinventing the wheel to create a private version (which they then name NHS track and trace in the hope that people won’t notice). They would employ a serial business failure to run this system, pay their employees to sit at home doing virtually nothing and claim that the whole thing is ‘world beating’. In fact, it”s what they did anyway when the first app went down in flames because they gifted ‘ridiculous amounts of money’ to their cronies to develop it. A good government would have invested early in the Apple/Google version and bolstered existing public infrastructure. They did the opposite but, then again, they are probably the worst government of my lifetime (from the first Wilson administration onwards).
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 26, 2020 9:58:13 GMT
We have a government that believes in the opposites of cronyism and creative destruction. The chosen are given contracts (often without competition) for anything from ‘moonshot’ madness to PPE grifters or ferry firms without ferries). The unchosen are now left to fail.
In a way, I can understand the latter. Businesses will be replaced by businesses where there is demand, Businesses are not guaranteed investments, they are a gamble and fate takes a hand in success or failure, Not comforting for those who gambled but, lower down, employees will soon be needed to be employed in successor businesses. The madness is having that and, at the same time, splurging money on businesses that, sixth months later, you then allow to fail. Either keep up the splurge or deny it in the first place.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 25, 2020 20:34:30 GMT
I would do but my phone is too old, apparently, and it's not available for tablets, so the ipad is out. Why not tablets? Why is that different to a phone? Because generally speaking you’re not walking about in the big wide world with an iPad. I take it everywhere, would be lost without it! I just wondered if there was a technical barrier.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 25, 2020 17:38:20 GMT
I hope people will adopt it. In the absence of a medical breakthrough contact-tracing is by far the most effective way of fighting this: if widely adopted it would be nearly as effective as a total lockdown with only a tiny fraction of the economic and social cost, and it costs people basically nothing at all to take part. But I expect stupidity will win out: too many people would rather stamp their feet and demand that someone else wave a magic wand and make the problem go away than lift a finger to help achieve that objective. This. Another pleading for us all to use. Anyone against downloading and using app? I would do but my phone is too old, apparently, and it's not available for tablets, so the ipad is out. Why not tablets? Why is that different to a phone?
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 23, 2020 12:54:57 GMT
Mentioned it before but love the patties that you get in Hull, potato and seasoning battered. I also recall a cheese and onion version from way back that was yummy. The glory of northern chippies is, however, gravy so dark and thick that it is more solid than liquid. Chips and such gravy are second to none. Up in Scotland the haggis (or white pudding) supper is worth a mention. I once had shark in batter from an Edinburgh chippy, felt like tough meat and tasted like fish. Not something that I’ve repeated.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 20, 2020 10:32:57 GMT
I saw both the Royal Court and NT productions. The Court production was the follow up to Blasted, which had scandalised the usual media suspects (it’s now become a classic, produced across the world). This was at the Duke of York’s while the Sloane Square space was being redone, if I remember correctly. The play was compelling in that production but the staging of the NT production was far superior, in my opinion. It picked out the phantasmagoric nature of the piece more effectively. It’s a beautiful play (and I know that word would be seen as unlikely).
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 18, 2020 9:38:56 GMT
As crazy as that is, it isn’t even the craziest of the ideas they are now floating. Local lockdown in all of Lancashire but excepting Blackpool(!) being one completely without foundation or logic. Of course certain people won’t flock to the one place they can do the things denied elsewhere, creating a crucible of virus exchange. Why on earth would that happen? None of those yet reach the level of treating schools as being magically warded against the virus, though.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 13, 2020 10:33:15 GMT
At least two of the ERG stated ages ago that the only way Johnson had been able to get them to vote for the Withdrawal Agreement was by promising them he would break it; so really the only surprising thing about this is the open admission of the intention to do so, and to break international law in the process. My guess would be the plan is to provoke a no-deal response from the EU, so they can be blamed for the ultimate failure to exit the transition period with an agreed deal. As for the implications for our international reputation, I have no difficulty believing this is something Johnson won't have thought about, and Cummings doesn't care about. It’s the inevitable endgame of a decadent politics that has the avoidance of responsibility at its heart. Blame is always somewhere else (why scapegoating and demonisation of ‘the other’ are often bedfellows). Populism is its dying spasm, where grievance takes the place of policy. When nothing matters, anything goes.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 12, 2020 10:01:38 GMT
A status update: The poster who has seen the most plays on this list is almost certainly princeton but they did not (so far) provide a total count (or alternatively an exhaustive list). That leaves vdcni and xanderl tied in first place on 20. Collectively we have see 48 of the 89 so far. The ones we are missing are listed below. Couple of observations. Interesting how comparatively rarely the Tony Award best play or musical matches the Pulitzer prize for any particular year. Also, there are some great plays which didn't win the Pulitzer. Which is the best ? My vote: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
MISSING PLAYS SO FARWhy Marry? Beyond the Horizon Miss Lulu Bett Icebound Hell-Bent Fer Heaven They Knew What They Wanted Craig's Wife In Abraham's Bosom Street Scene The Green Pastures Alison's House Of Thee I Sing Both Your Houses Men in White The Old Maid Idiot's Delight Abe Lincoln in Illinois There Shall Be No Night State of the Union The Shrike Picnic The Teahouse of the August Moon Look Homeward, Angel J.B. Fiorello! All the Way Home The Subject Was Roses No Place to Be Somebody The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds That Championship Season Seascape The Gin Game Talley's Folly Crimes of the Heart A Soldier's Play The Kentucky Cycle The Young Man from Atlanta Dinner With Friends Water by the Spoonful Between Riverside and Crazy A Strange Loop I've seen Street Scene and Of thee I sing - loved them both (also a few others that are on other people's list) I saw Of Thee I Sing at the Bridewell with Gavin Lee. i’ve only seen the opera version of Street Scene with music by Kurt Weill, the play version, that won the Pulitzer, I’ve only read, as with a few others there. The one that I can add is The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigold, which I saw at University.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 8, 2020 17:39:36 GMT
Many people are selfish but there is no compulsion to not be so (not diktat, rules) so they do what the hell they feel like doing. Not too bad for the young and healthy but the imposition on older and more at risk people is disproportionate. What is a state for if not to protect its people? What is freedom for if not to be used responsibly? I really don't understand how people here can act as though nobody should be expected to take any responsibility for the effect of their own actions. Everyone knows how disease spreads. Everyone knows that over 41,500 people have died of this. We've had half a year of constant news stories drumming into us the importance of continuing to protect ourselves. We've had local lockdowns to show that the problem has not gone away. And we have people who know all of that and still refuse to do the right thing, and we have people who claim that it's not those people's fault that they're deliberately doing the wrong thing. What's so difficult about doing the right thing simply because it's the right thing? What sort of vile person thinks it's OK to intentionally harm others because nobody is forcing them not to? How can anyone defend that? It goes much further than right/wrong thing. To take one current example. If you are a 17 year old Hancock just pointed out that your reckless behaviour is putting older people in danger. So cool it. At the same time they are told that they can gather in large groups, without masks, without effective social distancing, creating a dangerous environment for each other and adults around them, a number who are the age of their grandparents, in the magical space that they have designated a school building. Soon, university students will be able to do exactly the same plus added long hauls across country. There is no right thing/wrong, just a big conflicting thing.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 8, 2020 16:42:08 GMT
The government is incompetent but that does not mean we have to be. There is enough information on what we need to do to restrict transmission and be relatively safe - Keep your distance - Wear a face mask when indoors or interacting closely with strangers - Wash your hands regularly - Avoid busy places - ....... The duty of care lies with the individual not the state, we all need to interact with strangers every day from both a social and economic perspective and this can be done relatively safely as long as we respect each other and make the effort. Effort is the weakness as we all know we should exercise regularly but very few of us do as it is tough and being COVID aware at all times is tough but it is what we need to do. Expecting to live your life by government dictat is abdicating responsibility and even more so with this government of imbeciles. Many people are selfish but there is no compulsion to not be so (not diktat, rules) so they do what the hell they feel like doing. Not too bad for the young and healthy but the imposition on older and more at risk people is disproportionate. What is a state for if not to protect its people?
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 8, 2020 12:53:33 GMT
Have they actually been told they weren't at risk? Young people are certainly at lower risk of dying, but it wasn't long after the disease first hit Britain that we saw the first death of a young person with no previously existing health complications so it's not exactly news to anyone that everyone has at least some risk. And you don't need to have studied biology at university to understand the idea of diseases being transmitted from person to person. There are no excuses. I'm getting thoroughly sick of people blaming the government in an attempt to excuse members of the public behaving selfishly and irresponsibly. The message all along has been: keep your distance, wash your hands, sanitise things, and for the last couple of months wear masks. Even in the case of pubs it's been about maintaining distance, with table service only and no standing at the bar. Absolutely nothing anywhere has even hinted that's it's OK to go to a rave or crowd shoulder to shoulder in a bar or pile on to a small beach. If people adopt an attitude of "There's little risk to me so I'll do what I like" that's entirely on them. This isn't about people being confused. This about people not giving a f—. People need to think for themselves because that's the only way we can have a nuanced approach that permits partial opening. The government can't individually inspect every single venue and set policy on a case by case basis. Government can only set global policies, and if the government is going to clamp down it needs to do it everywhere. And that means a second lockdown, because if people won't make the responsible choice themselves the government has to take the choice away from them. We can't have it both ways. In many ways I wish the Government would implement a second lockdown. It was absolutely the wishy washy 'do this is you possibly maybe could but no worries if not, go to work but don't' messaging that got the country into deeper trouble. A concentrated strict lockdown was needed from the start. Getting the economy going doesn't mean a damn if numbers keep rising. I do honestly think that, eventually, we're heading for Universal Basic Income. The stop-start of opening and closing isn't viable for businesses and with Covid being such a fluid situation it is really the only fair way, especially to those who haven't been able to work since March and won't be able to for a long time to come. There have been months to restructure things like education but the ‘back to normal’ attitude has left us high and dry. To a certain extent, businesses continuing WFH will allow for transition to a permanent different way of working but the infrastructure plans don’t seem to have any real work being done on them. We’re supposed to be a nation of innovators but we are going to be left way behind if it is not allowed to flourish. Take education, there has been nothing of note done on creating a proper national online learning platform. Using current staffing there could easily have been a drive to get all schools up and running, to have staff training online during holidays, to source and distribute ways of accessing it. Now that we have also seen how using schools as frontline social services is fraught with danger, where is the bolstering of outside school agencies to support at risk and disadvantaged children properly? So, ‘back to school’ is spiralling within a few days, schools split apart and unable to deliver both live and online education, no alternative plan ready to go, further division of the advantaged/disadvantaged. We have wasted the summer months in a misplaced belief that we were going to be able to return to what was before, Add in examination disasters and we are in a terrible place. We have failed children. Oh, and UBI. Yes, looks absolutely necessary now.
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