My daughter and partner sometimes live under a bridge when they moor their Dutch barge under one. Not often as they have solar as their main power supply.
I’ve wondered that too Fran, yet haven’t convinced myself it will happen. Be good of it did to some degree but I fear society today is too “selfish” and used to having most of what they want.
Just read this to myself whilst on a Video Call and everyone wanted to know what i was laughing about
That’s great if your vocation functions while working remotely. Unfortunately I need to be in a room with 25+ other people for a company to get their money’s worth from me. The skills I have will always have international demand so the market will be there. It’ll just be harder to access it. Just like Brexit. It’s an easy position to argue that all this will be good for climate change, but there’s been around a 50% drop in air traffic this year and estimates of its future impact shows that it doesn’t make a dent. There needs to be something else in that area. It’s one thing to say people take too many holidays and unnecessary trips, but all of the largest polluters in the world are megacorps like PepsiCo and they dwarf the emissions and pollutants made by travel on a recreational level. Yes, let’s encourage switching to electric vehicles and let’s also add carbon taxes to air travel, but our future as a species depends on us taking the reins of massive international companies and forcing them to do their part too. They can’t just be sociopathic engines of profit and dominance as they are now. Saying bye to my daughter was heartbreaking, but she understood more this time. She told me all about the invisible string and how we’re joined together forever. I cried my eyes out. I’m hopeful that the work I do has enough value that she can understand in future that I had to continue it. (That work by the way, is teaching and developing child protective services. When I came to Kuwait years ago there was no protections for abused women and children. I am so proud of the work that my team has achieved in that time and hopefully (post-COVID) the legislation and structure we have been working so hard in developing will come to government vote and become law.
I echo all of the above. I am all for a full lockdown (it is needed to stop this thing), but I hope that the government do all they can to make sure everyone is compensated. To be fair, I was shocked that a Tory Govt went as far as furlough and as far as they have, but we need to ensure the self employed don't slip through the net. I had a convo with my accountant the other day and she said it is a catch 22 situation though - being self employed you can legitimately minimise the tax you pay, but that will reflect in the bottom line you show in profits/earnings. And then there is the under the radar earnings that some take. I don't want the govt to compensate for that, but would like them to recognise that self employed profit isn't 100% the income as there are legitimate ways of reducing your tax burden. It is tricky though, and then you have the chancers that try to exploit it as well.
Definitely need a full lockdown not one with construction and manufacturing still going ahead .....some factories have 1000s of employees. Stop the spread, stop them from needing to go in.
I think there’s much greater losses to the public purse by businesses cheating furlough schemes than by the small number of “chancers” though. My brother was furloughed with about 30 others that he knows of. The profit his company is making this year could have paid his whole salary more than 5,000 times over. Any business posting a profit greater than the amounts paid to furloughed staff should be paying it back to the country. How is it that people are expected to have saved funds to secure themselves in an emergency but apparently all these big employers are all existing hand to mouth? Maybe our society as structured now is just broken.
I wouldnt say I'm in great difficulty financially but I had to top up my wages (self employed) through my own savings during the first lockdown and had to do the same since the december lockdown. All money that was sat there waiting to use how ever I wanted. I shouldn't be using my own funds to help me get through a global pandemic when others are sitting there all cushy sipping there pimms!
My company wouldn’t furlough me, even though the government wrote into the rules that people caring for others in the highest vulnerability group could be furloughed. Their reasoning was that “Because they had no reason to use the furlough scheme, they couldn’t put me on it”, which was a crock of ****. I had to choose between keeping my wife as safe as possible, or take a big financial hit, so 9 months later I haven’t set foot back in my workplace. Wouldn’t have been such a financial hit if the government hadn’t pushed my retirement back a year. Should have retired last July, but now waiting for another 6 months.
Where do you stop? I'm currently isolated due to my housemate testing positive. She works in a care home and is relied upon. I work in a factory as a butcher that supplies big food chains and I'm relied upon. Obviously I can't go in and I wouldn't dream of it anyway to infect others. I can't afford to go out and live on my own in this climate, I won't get furlough for being off just statutory sick pay. How is this right?
Not sure it's a simple as that though. I do get it isn't right having to use savings, some people dont even have those. I know people who work in business development who usually clear £5-6kper month. They are now only clearing less than half of that and have the same overheads as before. Others I know are now working 50% more hours, for the same pay, with a constant threat of redundancy hanging over their heads. I think everyone's in a ****ty situation, other than some of the pensioners, I'm not sure many are drinking Pimms just now.
I reckon my employer will look after me but that's not the point. If us key workers have to take time off like this we're only entitled to statutory from day one. I think we get full pay to a certain extent but us key workers aren't getting treated the same.
I've been wearing a back brace and 2 knee braces when I run - has been a revelation to me that just by strapping my lower back up can reduce the pain debt by such a lot. It still hurts like a bitch for a few hours, but I can usually move freely afterwards and that never used to be the case. I now run until it starts hurting, then keep going for a bit longer. The distance I can run before it hurts a lot is increasing slowly but it is increasing
I got mine from Amazon, is similar to this. https://www.physioroom.com/product/...ryMd9pfNVzlXpQa7nxP_ZhFF8QNThZAkaAmHSEALw_wcB
