Clapping the essential workers

Not been done for the last two weeks, but car horns were blaring, people were clapping and cheering and fireworks a'plenty were set off around our streets.

Same here Firefox every week as you say, fireworks,car horns the lot.

Loudest I have ever heard, Momac. Even an ambulance got in on the act with a siren.

Been like that, round our way, from week 1

I do it every week too, an ambulance came past tonight and peeped at us, Its good for the community as well, a feeling of togetherness and respect to the essential workers,

Here here

We could here a guitar playing & a couple singing Together in Electric Dreams amidst all the fireworks & clapping

My ex-boss was telling me in an email that his next door neighbour is a singer and last week he got out his amp, microphone and speakers, and sang to all the others in the street, which I thought was a lovely thing to do.

Not a fan of the trend, but it was good last night.

The fireworks have distressed our dog every week.
Another worry for some pet-owning keyworkers busy on shifts.

Given non essentials retailers are closed, some folk must have enormous stocks of fireworks at home: they have had five rounds of setting them off so far.

You’re right, Priscus, it’s bang out of hoarder.

very good!

I don't clap them, personally. I agree about the animals being scared too. Shops will sell fireworks throughout the year soon.

It's becoming divisive with people being abused for not taking part.

Dementia-stricken OAP, 90, sent cruel note from neighbour slamming him for not clapping NHS

Tha's all gone soft in t'yed!

I live in carr lane hakley hall and EVERY THURSDAY NIGHT MY NEIGHBOURS COME OUT AT 8.00PM AND CLAP EVERY WEEK !

Golden Bear, I'm just round corner and we do too and , i intend to every week because the NHS will do their stuff till whenever it takes and, they are putting their lives on the line, its not a choice to them, If they all stayed at home, there would be a lot more deaths, and one of them could be me or you, anyone can catch covid 19 and anyone can give it, its not a game or a social activity, its war against an unknown germ,

take it seriously stay at home, hope you don't get it and show your appreciation for the front line warriors,

Today folks...11am one minutes silence for the front line workers who have passed away fighting the Virus.

tom/ GB
I used to live in Carr Lane until 1971.
Is the bus terminus still outside shops ?
I lived opposite.
I suppose its all developed now ?

Very fitting that Youll Never Walk Alone being played on Capital Gold

Don't forget Face Painting!

Bring your own emulsion. Gloss paimt extra.

Fireworks going off ever thurs night plus last night(VE Day). Where do they get these fireworks from

I just came across this little essay by Gavin Barber. It sort of sums up how we see the UK right now.

“So, I'm getting increasingly concerned about the longer-term implications of what might lazily be termed the "Diana-fication" of the NHS - a mass outpouring of sentimental expression, and a sudden, rather revisionist clutching to the national bosom, as exemplified by large-scale charity fund-raising and public (social media) expressions of "support".

First problem with this: the NHS is not a charity. It's a national organisation (the clue is very much in the name, here) which is and should be publicly funded via taxation. Treating it as the subject of seasonal/event-driven fundraising efforts undermines the long-standing, democratically-expressed consensus that the NHS is something that everyone should take their fair share of responsibility for funding - not something that you sometimes choose to give money to when you're feeling particularly soppy about nurses.

Second problem: the trend for public "celebration" brings with it an increasingly prevalent portrayal of NHS staff as smiling, benevolent "heroes". They do heroic things, but they're not happy amateurs who put on a uniform when they feel like playing superheroes: they're highly trained professionals performing a range of difficult, stressful, and sometimes boring tasks in a variety of clinical and non-clinical roles. A sentimentalised portrayal of NHS workers risks undermining their professionalism.

(Aside: as others wittier and more articulate than me have pointed out, the Thursday evening "support" events have quickly taken on a grandiose, almost aggressive edge, in much the same way as wearing a poppy in November was once a quietly respectful commemoration of sacrifice but is now a "my poppy's bigger than yours so I care more about dead soldiers than you do" competition. The public gestures of support have quickly escalated from being a nice thing to do, into something that people are *expected* to do - to the point where those who don't join in are on the verge of being portrayed as granite-faced malcontents who want to see all nurses locked in a cage full of snakes and lions and poo, despite the fact that those people might be sleeping off a hospital nightshift or putting young kids to bed at 8pm on a Thursday).

Why does any of this matter?, some might ask. Where's the harm in a public upsurge of support for a vital, life-saving group of public servants?

Why it matters, I think, is because movements of this kind are, by their nature, *transitory*. They capture the public mood at a particular moment in time, and then that moment passes, and people move on to something else. And we are still going to need the NHS once this is all over. (Which, by the way, it won't be, for ages).

More than that: all this love-bombing gives the NHS and its staff a halo - a halo with a lustre that will inevitably fade. And that is dangerous. This is Britain. There will be a Newtonian response to all of this. A backlash. (It's probably already started in some quarters). So, once all of the coronavirus-driven disruption starts to fade, and the NHS is crying out for funding in more 'normal' times, there will be those - and there will be many of them - whose instinctive reaction will be that the NHS have had their day in the spotlight, and should go back to being undervalued and disrespected. "What? Them again? I gave £10 to Captain Tom and now you want me to pay more National Insurance? F*ck that. I'm voting Tory".

Perhaps most importantly of all, throwing charity and applause at the NHS lets the government off the hook. It leaves people thinking that, individually and collectively, we have all "done our bit", because we gave them a few extra quid when we were feeling totes emosh, and banged a saucepan on a Thursday evening. Whereas the more prosaic (but much less Instagrammable) truth is that the parlous state of the NHS is entirely attributable to a government which has spent the last decade running it into a state of deliberate neglect to the point where its only possible salvation is to be sold off, bit by bit, to the likes of Richard Branson. Nationalise the risk, privatise the profit. As ever. But, because the likes of Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson can publicly associate themselves with a time and a movement in which EVERYONE LOVED THE NHS, they dodge culpability for their systematic dismantling of it.

So, you know. Show some socially distant love on a Thursday evening if you want to. But remember that you can do far more for the NHS at the ballot box than you ever can from your window or your social media accounts.”

EDIT: I edited the four letter word to save post from being removed by admin.

.

".... despite the fact that those people might be sleeping off a hospital nightshift, or putting young kids to bed, at 8pm on a Thursday"


But, would anybody be sleeping off a hospital nightshift (or any other nightshift) at 8pm in the evening?

I'm certainly not clapping like a demented seal outside my house at 8pn on a Thursday night. Strange isn't, that we're not allowing to go outside our homes unless for essential duties and have to keep this two metre distance nonsense (as if this so-called virus knows how far it can jump), yet the powers that be (puppets in suits really being told what to do) tell us we can stand outside our front doors and in the street at 8pm on every Thursday night clapping for "out NHS heroes". So doesn't this virus not spread at night?. I see the whole clapping thing has insulting. If anything these people should be getting is a pay rise and funding, and so too all carers in nursing homes, but no, the focus and brainwashing is all aimed at the NHS and people supposedly saving lives from this (supposed) virus.

Come on, we are being played like a violin.

Nurses are being told to stay at home, as there's not enough work for them in hospitals! All this "working till they drop, looking after coronavirus patients" is a big lie!
Two nurses I know, mother and daughter (one Wigan hospital and one Warrington district nurse) have said it's all both of their arses. Another Warrington hospital nurses have said, on facebook, that there's no extra work for them as there's not enough patients to have them there longer than contract hours.
Yet the papers still say they're dropping like flies!

Who do you believe?

Every week our most neighbours are out .

It's ben changed now, no need to clap and bang pans on demand, they want you to juggle, or do backflips down the street, or show knifethrowing skills. Be creative.

i am not saying this is true but!!!
A diversionary foreign policy,

Generally, the pursuit of a diversionary foreign policy may offer the leader in power four benefits, all of which increase their ability to remain in power:[1]

A successful diversionary foreign policy could increase support for the domestic regime. This in turn increases that government's time to address their internal trouble.
Artificial tension created from the international conflict may justify a leaders' suppression of dissent.
The war abroad could cause the population to simply be distracted from the issues that induced the original dissatisfaction with the government.
The external threat may unify the country through the Rally Round the Flag Syndrome effect by creating a new out-group other than the government for the population to direct its dissatisfaction. [maybe it now being used at home to stop people being discontented

You aren't wrong

never forget, no matter what you get, or how near to death you are, the NHS will help you, rich,poor, black,white , Alien or from Haydock,

Brilliant Tom

Petering out now.

Keep up the good work tonight folks, 👍👍👍

I won't be clapping on command.

Another fantastic turn out by us, long may it continue

Reported next week could be the last official clapping day has it is having a negative effect and being used more has a political statement,

Nobody in our house as run outside at 8pm to clap these workers. we can support them in better ways than that.
In a few years time you will look back and think how daft was I for doing that.

I suppose it's a personal thing. I don't do it because I onject to the emotional blackmail aspect that if you care you go out and clap. My neighbour was sniping at those who didn't go out . It would be different if I lived close to a hospital and I thought my clapping might help to boost morale. I donated to Captain Tom's fund and I wonder how many who bang on their pans have done so? A friend says she does it for a bit of fun.Each to his own .

You can say that again Kath, people especially those on Fakebook are like sheep.

I don't care what "some people" think, we have been doing it from day 1, and there's no negative effect were we are, and we will carry on, daft, NOOOOOO, proud YESSSSSS,we also keep to social distancing.

What even when you are "going out as normal" and having barbecues.

So what?

So what indeed, "Dominic".

I go for a walk every morning like i have always done......so what?