Chatterbox Monday

No. The truly terrifying thing is that you make such sweeping statements with "Breathtaking Arrogance". Of course people want it to end; what they don't want is to have it ended prematurely and to have all the hospitals stacked full of Covid-19 cases so that every other form of surgery and treatment is yet further delayed.

The condition of my left leg has now deteriorated to the point where I am not sure if the ablation operation will actually save it. This operation was urgent in 2018, etc. I am now permanently in pain whose severity increases - only morphine alleviates it, but never completely.

This isn't about "poor old Chumbles"; it's about the millions of people living in similar circumstances whose treatment is about to be subjected to much greater delays.

"Britain lost its freedom..." is the kind of fuckwitted statement I'd expect from a redtop leader writer.  If anything, the British electorate lost its freedom when it stopped examining and checking 'facts' shouted out by demagogues and slack-jawed journos. 

Unfortunately it's probably even more reading than BOTW, by a large margin. All Zelda games have two main components, namely combat and puzzles. Skyward Sword is one of the more puzzle-heavy Zeldas, with puzzles largely centred around motion controls. Unlike BOTW it is very, very linear, so there's potential for constant frustration if he can't progress. With the original game, Zelda developers were going through a phase of worrying about players getting stuck and they implemented a hint system that was criticised for leaving no puzzle at all. As far as I can see they've taken that out of the new version. It could be that it's been replaced with the now optional summoning of Link's companion, Fi, but I haven't tried this yet.

Although they've now given the game a button control scheme I think there's general consensus that motion controls are the better option, so I didn't even try button control. Sword and shield combat with the joycons is indeed a lot of fun and very responsive, although last night I ran into a problem with a one-off section where the on-screen instructions on how to hold and move the joycons were totally unclear. I've meanwhile seen on Twitter that I wasn't the only one struggling with this bit. I pulled it off eventually but I still haven't found out what I was supposed to do.

I'm not far enough into this remaster to give a full assessment, but I've played the original. It's never going to be my favourite Zelda game but they fixed quite a few of the problems of the original. The story and the characters are great and the puzzle/dungeon design is fantastic.

So, I'd probably wait until he's a bit older, but it's a game worth experiencing.


On a different note, one game that I forgot to recommend is Luigi's Mansion 3. Hardly any reading needed and lots of fun gameplay that is made for couch co-op. 

Chumbles you're bollocking the wrong man.

Also all the Olympic finals etc are on from 7ish to midday, e.g. the women's football team play Chile at 8:30 on Thursday.

The situation is all kinds of messed up and there aren't any easy solutions, but there are certainly better alternatives to what our government has been doing.

I have an auto-immune disease that is well controlled by taking an immunosuppressant. My reaction to getting the vaccine was practically nil, which could be a sign that my immune system hasn't responded at all and that despite vaccination I don't have any antibodies.

Still, the knowledge that I and more and more people have been vaccinated and that social distancing and mask wearing regulations were in place meant that I've felt safe to go out, eat out, give business to my hairdresser, spend my money in shops rather than online. I would obviously avoid crowded places and I'm fortunate enough to not be totally reliant on public transport. When I need to go by train I travel first class as a precaution.

According to the Guardian data 48% of the population were in the vaccine priority category. That's well over half of adults. Vaccine uptake in this group has indeed been very high, but there's no guarantee that immunisation will work for everyone and in any case, some risk remains that is likely to translate into hospital admissions and deaths, as Sheep has pointed out. So I would think that there will be quite a few people like me who are now no longer so comfortable with spending their money in well regulated establishments, making Jeff once more the only winner. And that's not even taking into account the workers providing all these services we are relying on. They are being forced into uncomfortable situations and will be at increased risk of infection. From a business standpoint, having your workforce at constant risk of quarantining is not sustainable, either.

I've been very much in favour of lifting restrictions on weddings and funerals and family meetings and the like. Even clubbing, concerts and sports events can be made safe through properly checking for proof of vaccination and enabling social distancing and continued mask wearing. Vaccination rates in the UK have now pretty much stalled and this would be a good incentive. WFH isn't the best solution for every business but has given families much more flexibility and often resulted in increased productivity, saving on time and money spent on commuting.

So, with cases on the rise thanks to delta (whose presence in the UK is the government's fault), why turn regulations into recommendations? Learning to live with Covid-19 means learning to live with taking precautions, not some magical thinking that the virus will go away if we just ignore it hard enough.

Also, creating conditions that could facilitate the emergence of a vaccine resistant variant that will send us back to square one is maybe not the smartest move.

Well, the beach i am irresponsibly holidaying in the vicinity of is absolutely rammed with people, including loads of teenagers which is a bit annoying as the English school holidays are not meant to have started. Given a day off for Freedom Day? To add insult to injury I had to get out of the ocean early when a group of large men with hacking coughs and cans of Stella waded in and started larking around as if they owned the place, like Wide Andy down at his local Yates celebrating yet another clean sweep at the Swaftas.

I've been reduced to playing Angry Birds as it's too hot for my brain to do anything more complicated.

Now I understand why the Met Office is issuing its first ever extreme weather warning.

It was a joke…

Sounds like you need a bollocking.

I fall into the Gacha trap every couple of years.