It'll be tough!

[johnofgwent]

Probably was one of the computer journals, I can't remember which — I was about 25 at the time and trying to get info journalism...

He did get around a bit. I remember a budget in which they started to mess about with advance corporation tax to penalise the SME owner whose total benefits exceeded the 40% bracket. A prize arse who hadnt read the small print sent in a letter to both John Samson's 'Computer Contractor' and Richard Buggins' Freelance Informer. Both printed it. I wrote a letter to both highlighting the flaw, pointing to the fact the earlier author had failed to remember he will have paid ACT at the time of dividend declaration, which he did not include.



Both printed my letter. In FI the resident tax expert commented praising me for my attention to detail, in CC Samson himself emailed back with similar praise, and he asked if I was any relation to Hedley too...



Sadly not. My brother has taken some time to research our ancestry following on from a great uncle who was a bit of a nutter in his pursuit of our family tree.

[Wiggles]

You know what wiggles, if YOU'RE not concerned about Covid, and it's not affecting YOUR mental health then I suggest you take your disgusting comments elsewhere.



Your comments on the elderly and the vulnerable on this forum, both on this thread and others, are disgusting. You have been told not to speak about how getting rid of the elderly in whichever way necessary, including Covid and also euthanasia, is a good thing, yet you do. Repeatedly.



Feck off you WUM, go find another playground for your filth. I'm 100% done with you, and I suspect most of the other members are too.

An interesting and very mature reply, thank you. Of course I am bothered about the virus, mainly because I don't want to get it. Am I bothered that it may take out a few million of the world's older population, of course not. At the moment approximately one person dies to every two that are born, and that's a crazy situation. The more people we have on the planet the worse the global warming situation becomes. We can't have it both ways.



Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike old people, especially as I am pretty old myself, but this isn't about what's best for you, I, or the old geezer up the road, it's what is best for the world and society as a whole.

[Wiggles]

With regards to the vaccine. From what I have read, there are four strains of Corona virus, and the common cold is one of them. Well, we still haven't got a vaccine for that !



I am fully aware there are various conspiracy theories being throw around. It comes from bats, or even the those little ant eater things are two of them. Personally I believe it may be a man made virus produced in China. They have a massive and very old population. Producing a virus that will thin out many of the older people is a logical idea. What's more, they know full well a vaccine will be very hard to produce in a short time, if at all. Don't believe their propaganda, the crisis in China is not getting any better.

[johnofgwent]

Because with Ebola you could see it coming. Covid19 is infectious before the symptoms are felt or seen. As for your comment on it only hits the old - I suggest you keep up with the news a little better. It is attacking all ages. In Italy many are in their 20's and 30's and it's not a sniffle, they are on oxygen for severe pneumonia. In case you haven't noticed people in chronic pain and inability to breathe are arriving at hospitals in greater numbers than are leaving, hence the hospitals getting swamped. This is already happening in London with staff at their wits end trying to help people get better. Normal flu does not become chronic pneumonia in as many patients. This is not normal flu and I think there is little doubt that if allowed to run it's course the resultant number of deaths will be more than any of us can imagine. I take it you have no parents or other relatives that you care about and are assuming that you are not on the death list. I hope you are right.

And for the record, mum went last year, thanks to the DNR pathway where the demented are left to die of thirst because we can't do what we would to a dog in that state.  I really don't want to see that again. So I'm a fully accredited member of the orphanage christmas party club. And with three of the conditions that qualify me for a free flu jab (although one i am sure is a misdiagnosis of what is probably a more severe problem with the liver) I think I'm on the list. But I'be been on such lists before. Death and I are old pals. Met him in person twice and been dragged back, had to kick him in the nuts four times separate from that to make him release his chosen prey. Having faced down Smallpox, Diptheria Polio and Typhoid, and al that in the 60's in Cardiff when I was in the othe rend fo the vulnerable category, I gotta say, if it happens, it happens, and while I'm not going to be stupid, I'm buggered if i will walk round terrified either. It's not death I fear, it's lingering unendurable pain I fear. It'll be a bastard not seeing Melissa on the west end stage or standing where i have stood in the Royal Institution, depending on which way she goes, but hey, that's death...

[patman post]

Probably was one of the computer journals, I can't remember which — I was about 25 at the time and trying to get info journalism...

[johnofgwent]

Any relation to Hedley Voisey, a journalist I met some 15 years ago, who reported on computers and the like ...?

Not to our knowledge. Was he on the staff of Computer Weekly ? And I thought he spelled his name with a Y. And if you only knew how many bar room brawls there have been between the 'Y's and the 'I''s



We are unrelated to Frank Voisey, seller of second hand Skodas from a lot in Fishponds Bristol too.



EDIT !!



I looked him up. It was COMPUTING. I knew I'd seen the name somewhere. He had a column in New Scientist too if I recall, near the Grimbledon Down cartoon

[johnofgwent]

Because with Ebola you could see it coming. Covid19 is infectious before the symptoms are felt or seen. As for your comment on it only hits the old - I suggest you keep up with the news a little better. It is attacking all ages. In Italy many are in their 20's and 30's and it's not a sniffle, they are on oxygen for severe pneumonia. In case you haven't noticed people in chronic pain and inability to breathe are arriving at hospitals in greater numbers than are leaving, hence the hospitals getting swamped. This is already happening in London with staff at their wits end trying to help people get better. Normal flu does not become chronic pneumonia in as many patients. This is not normal flu and I think there is little doubt that if allowed to run it's course the resultant number of deaths will be more than any of us can imagine. I take it you have no parents or other relatives that you care about and are assuming that you are not on the death list. I hope you are right.

OK I'll bite



Now strictly speaking you could not "see ebola coming" but i agree the early onset symptoms became apparent far more quickly, and there certainly was nothing like the fortnight of absolutely no outward effect whatsoever which we have with this plague and which is the reason it is the problem it is. The other problem with ebols of course is it is the perfect biological weapon to use on a country whose medical system is in the stone age and whose rituals for the disposal of the dead are guaranteed to give an agent such as ebola maximum opportunity to strike down onlookers and bystanders



The real problem with the figures is we no longer have any meaningful presentation of the number of people who have to be brutal "shrugged off a nasty case of the lurgy".



As I mentioned in several posts and will not bore people with links and detail about again, the American Centre for Disease Control put reports in the public domain each year on the flu and deaths arising, and a particularly bad session two (?) winters ago saw 16-17 million americans affected so badly they sought aid over and above a pack or three of lem-sip and a bottle of whisky. Of those, about half a million needed some sort of SERIOUS medical intervention such as we are seeing with this plague, and of that half a million, thirty five thousand died.



The CDC have absolutely NO idea how many people caught this flu, went to bed for a few days with a bottle of scotch and a packet of paracetamol and rose from their beds haggard, rough as a cat's tongue but in effect alive and pretty much little the worse for wear. They have no idea because they have no measure. So they stick their index finger up their arse, wiggled it around, counted the number of lumps they found on it, took away the number they first thought f and thus came up with the notion that for 17 million people to summon some degree of "professional" aid, about as many did sod all except take paracetamol and drink until it went away.



So from that the CDC declared 35 million caught the flu and one in a  thousand (35,000) died of it. But they have no actual evidence to back that. It might be huge numbers got it so mildly they laughed at it, or hardly anyone managed to laugh it off. And this matters because without proper figures for that we cannot make any sort of statement as to the real situation.



And there is another problem which I admit I have banged on about a bit ...



Reports presented to coroners inquests from the 1990's showed that EVERY man on the slab over 55 was showing visible signs of, or gave a clinical positive result to a test for prostate cancer, such that they would have CERTAINLY died of it before their 105th birthday. and some of those would have died of it before their 56th. But the vast majority (85%) of men on those slabs were there thanks to something else (like for example a clapham omnibus) putting them on it long before the prostate cancer could do the grim reaper's bidding.



And I heard that from the guy who ran the South Wales Forensic Science Service. Now admittedly he was saying it to try to cheer dad up, as he had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer.... but in the context of this thread, one has to ask, how many of those now in the hands of an undertaker who have tested positive for COVID 19 would have been their customer this year, this month or this week anyway.



And I'm not trying to belittle the nature of the problem, I'm trying to point out we have no clue what the reality is.

[patman post]

Any relation to Hedley Voisey, a journalist I met some 15 years ago, who reported on computers and the like ...?

[johnofgwent]

I think I put this up on the former site. I'll  re-post it here for those who think it's tough already ... It was something I found in my father's old floppy disks. He wrote it for my brother's kid who was working on a school project on life as a child during the war. I'll leave the intro I put when I gave it to the BBC for inclusion in one of their commemoration pages...



My father died of prostate cancer in the early hours of the day before Christmas eve 2005.  For reasons I will not bore you with, I recently had to get a 1.44 floppy disk (remember them !!) up and running for a client, to read some old data, and having set up a suitable system, I went looking round for something in my office with which to test it. And so I chanced upon a dust covered box left idle for over a decade.



I had last opened it to fetch out the disk at the front, the one with my name on it, the one that had the documents I guess every terminal cancer patient is encouraged to write.



But there were several other disks in the box, which I had ignored at the time, and I loaded one of them out of curiosity. Here's what I found on it. Something Dad wrote a year and a half before he died, describing his memories of what was then wartime suburban London.



From what I **NOW** know about him and his father, it's interesting that even when writing this account, some sixty years after the events, he quite "interestingly" censored it. But for those who want to know what life was like when London was a bit like down-town Aleppo is today ...



RECOLLECTIONS OF BEING A CHILD DURING WORLD WAR 2

================================================

(I cannot remember the correct sequence of events, as it was over 60 years ago.)



Before the war started we were issued with gas masks, and shown how to use them. They had a rather nasty smell of rubber so that if you put it on you were almost gassed anyway. They were issued in a cardboard case with a shoulder strap. I cannot remember when children started being evacuated, my elder brother went to Devon, my mother thought I was too young to go away.



At the beginning of the war I was living in a bungalow in Hainault, Essex, virtually on the outskirts of London. The railway station was about a quarter of a mile down the road. The branch line ran from Ilford to Newbury Park, Barkingside, Fairlop, Hainault, Grange Hill, Chigwell and on to Woodford.



This branch line was changed after the war to part of the Central Line of London Underground from Newbury Park to Woodford. Our nearest bus route was about three quarters of a mile away (my junior school was a little further). I only mentioned the list of stations as you might recognise Grange Hill (TV school) and Chigwell (Birds of a Feather on TV).



With public transport being so far away, I used to cycle often. In fact as long as my parents had some idea where I was going, I was allowed to roam freely except during the period of daylight raids.



My bicycle came in useful to make a quick dash for home if the siren sounded, or pedal like mad in the opposite direction to the path of a doodlebug. In those days very few people owned cars, and with petrol unobtainable, except for special reasons, the roads were practically empty. I saw buses converted to run on gas, they were equipped with a large sort of balloon on top holding the gas.



I was almost nine years of age when Mr Neville Chamberlain (Prime Minister) made his speech at 11.00 a.m. on Sep 3rd 1939 declaring war on Germany. We heard this on the wireless (as they were called), there was no television, but cinemas had newsreel programmes. Ten minutes into the Prime Minister's speech, the air raid sirens sounded. I remember wondering, "What happens now"



I think we just stood there, knees shaking with our gas masks over the shoulder ready to use. But nothing occurred. We later heard that the alarm was raised when one of our reconnaissance planes forgot to switch on his friendly identification signal.



What may be of interest to present day children is that at one period schools were shut, as it was considered unsafe to have a large number of children in one place. Schoolteachers came to pupil's houses to give lessons to small groups. This probably lasted until the daylight raids were over, as I remember being back in school. I also remember knuckles being rapped with a ruler for inattention or misbehaviour  - no chance of compensation, if you were punished there must have been a good reason!



During the "Battle of Britain" which is when the Luftwaffe were trying to destroy the RAF, most of the "dog-fights" were over the southeast area, so I did not see any of these. We did not have an Anderson shelter for a while so my parents did the best to protect me. I quite often slept on the floor under the dining table with a mattress on top for protection.



One night during the concentration on fighter airfields, they bombed Fairlop airfield (it was about a mile away as the crow flies) nearly all night. I was not very happy as the bombs were whistling down time after time. Every time that they heard another stick on it's way down my parents would kneel down and put their heads under the table like an ostrich burying its head in the sand!



Fairlop airfield never seems to be mentioned in any reports in papers or television, probably because Hurricanes based there were not as glamorous as the Spitfire. French, Poles and Czech airmen flew these Hurricanes.



My father was an inspector in a factory producing parts to do with the war effort; this was called a "reserved occupation". He joined the LDV (Local Defence Volunteers). The LDV soon after became the Home Guard. After a while he was issued with a .303 Lee Enfield rifle. Bullets for this gun were issued, but I remember thinking that the five bullets he received were not an awful lot to stop the whole German army.



Later, due to having served in the Navy as a radio operator, he was asked to join the Royal Observer Corps, given a powerful radio receiver in order to eavesdrop on enemy communications. I expect that he was given certain times and particular frequencies to use. I presume that he reported back to the equivalent of the present day GCHQ in Cheltenham.



Employees in his factory took turns to do fire-watching, one day my father and a colleague were watching through an open window when a bomber approached firing machine guns. One called to the other "SHUT THE WINDOW!" I do not think it was long before they realised how useless that was!

Most of the daylight raids stopped after the "Battle of Britain" as the Germans were losing too many planes in daylight.



We had air raids every night for a long time. I sometimes wonder why my parents allowed me to go out in the garden many evenings to watch the "fireworks", but only if I wore my father's tin hat. I was fascinated to see what was going on, but suppose I did not realise how great the danger was since the anti-aircraft guns were usually in full voice, there was plenty of shrapnel raining down. If it hit the roof then it would come clattering down together with a piece of tile. You could hear the pieces of shrapnel coming so could avoid them, but note where they landed in the garden.

The following morning you could find them, as they were now cool. You showed off your finds to your friends, particularly the larger ones, but nosecones from shells were very rare.



Being on the edge of London, the area was heavily defended to try to shoot down as many enemy aircraft as possible before reaching the centre of the capital. There were lots of barrage balloons; if you saw these being raised, you knew that it would not be long before the sirens were sounded. There were quite a few heavy anti-aircraft batteries not far away; these shook the ground when they were in action. These guns had searchlights working with them by night; they seemed to be aimlessly wandering around the sky. I only saw an aircraft caught in their beams on one occasion.

There was also a light anti-aircraft gun mounted on a railway truck, this used to "bark" a few times, then you heard the tank engine puffing further up the line in case the flashes from the gun gave away it's position. This railway line was about a quarter of a mile from us, Hainault station is on this line with a bridge over the road. One day whilst in the area I heard and saw a low-flying plane firing machine guns. I hid under the bridge until he was past.



One morning we heard that a Heinkel 111 had been shot down near us. I walked across the field, finding nobody in authority there I went very close to this plane. In those days I had not seen any aeroplanes close up, I imagined a bomber would be very large in order to carry the crew and lots of bombs. So I was very surprised to see how small it was, and wondered how it was possible to shoot down such a small target. After this I had more respect for the work of the searchlight and gun crews.



Later at home we had an Anderson shelter installed, but we could not use it much since it was normally full of water. However our elderly neighbours did have one and we often went in theirs. There were often five adults, two children and three dogs in this shelter. The dogs slept in the middle of the floor with the humans spread around as best as possible. One morning I woke up to be told I had been sleeping on a spade all night. A spade was taken into the shelter in case you had to dig your way out.



One night my parents made up a bed for me using a put-you-up chair placed in the hall. Our neighbours persuaded my parents to use their shelter, which we did. Later that evening my father and neighbour were watching outside the shelter when our neighbour remarked that it was a full moon. My father agreed, then realised they were looking NORTH so recognised that it was a land mine. They tumbled into the shelter and closed the door. Soon after there was an extremely loud explosion - this was very frightening. After a short wait they opened the door saying, "It's all gone" meaning our house.



But what had happened was the mine had landed in the street opposite to us, several houses up, and everything was obscured by dust. I think two of the bungalows were destroyed, but nobody was killed. In the morning we returned to see the damage, I expect the roof had mostly gone plus all the windows. I cannot remember the damage, or the repairs being done, but what sticks in my mind is the state of my temporary bed. It was covered in glass from the front door (in spite of a thick curtain) and loads of plaster from the ceiling.



Another night, whilst in their shelter, there was a funny noise as if something was dragging across the top of the shelter and then across the shed roof in our garden, which was next to their shelter. There were rumours going round at the time of secret weapons, so this subject was brought up.

Nobody went outside to look, all were too scared. In the morning everything seemed to be normal, later we were told that a barrage balloon had broken free from its moorings and what we heard was the cable dragging across the roof.

I remember during the extensive incendiary raids on London the distant skies were red due to the burning buildings. Closer to us was a burning gasometer which lit up the sky for three days.



Later on during the war one evening when my father was outside he called in "they have got one,  his tail is on fire". There was a loud bang, we found that a large crescent-shaped piece of glass broken in one our front windows.



Three days later it was announced that the Germans were firing V1 or doodlebugs at us. So we had one of the first. These doodlebugs were a common sight; there were a lot of them, particularly after the Normandy invasion, when the Germans moved the firing sites towards Holland, their path toward London now being closer to us. They were easy to pick out due to the noise from their engines and were no problem until the engine cut out. Once that happened, if you were anywhere near, you ducked quickly, as they then came down in a steep dive, hitting the ground soon after.

The last things to endure were the V2 rockets. These were very scary. The first you knew was a very loud bang followed by the sound of it coming down, since they exceeded the speed of sound, I think it may have sounded as if they were going up, but it was a bit weird.

There was absolutely no warning, there were no air raid sirens, just a loud explosion, if you were still alive, then it had missed you. I was cycling to the library to change my books one day when a V2 exploded not far away. I nearly fell off my bicycle, either in shock or surprise, luckily there was no traffic near me.



I recall being in the "Super" cinema Ilford one afternoon during the daytime raids. The noise from guns and bombs made it difficult to hear the soundtrack until the noise worsened and the film stopped, the manager came onto the stage asking us to leave the cinema. I was a bit worried about going out into the open to catch a train home. I thought that the smoke from the railway engine would make a good target. But I think that the worst of the raid was over.



Later a V2 rocket destroyed this cinema. Luckily for us, although some were close, none of the doodlebugs or rockets was close enough to cause us further physical damage. However I was beginning to jump at loud noises, and by early 1945 my mother felt that she had stood enough and persuaded my father to ask for a transfer to another location. We came to Cardiff. We were rather surprised to hear the sirens sounding an "all clear", we were told that the sirens were being tested out. We replied that we were more used to them being worn out!



Most food was rationed during the war, but bread rationing was not introduced until later. The weekly allowance of meat was one shilling (5p) per person per week, two pennyworth had to be corned beef. Other foods like butter (two ounces), sugar, something that passed for cheese and other food allowances were only small. Sweets were also on coupons, about three quarters of a pound a month. Vegetables were grown in this country, so were not in short supply. Tins were on a points system, only one point for government stamped Meat and Veg. (you did not ask what the meat was!)

Eggs were rationed but we kept two chickens, we exchanged our egg rations for chicken food. We had more eggs this way.

I think that I was hungry at mealtimes, but there was always something to eat. My mother did the same as others to see we did not starve. But whatever we had it was probably far healthier than take-aways or ready meals of today.



The government did try issuing suggestions for example; boil some parsnips, mash them, mix in some banana flavouring. This was supposed to be a substitute for bananas – which were completely off the menu. My mother tried this once, it was revolting, and we never tried it again.

I vaguely remember that the government opened "British Restaurants", something like a works canteen. The food there was not very appetising, but it did help the rations to go further.



Because the railway station was nearer than the bus stop we usually caught a train to Ilford, our main shopping area. Before the war the chocolate machine on the return platform was filled with penny and two-penny Nestles chocolate bars. If I was lucky I had a bar of chocolate.



When I was about twelve I used to catch the train to Ilford on my own to buy horsemeat (stained green to denote unfit for human consumption) for our dog. The chocolate machine was still there, it made my mouth water, but of course there was no chocolate due to rationing.



Ray Voisey (Deceased) Circa 2003

=============================

[patman post]

Seriously, why are you all panicking so much. Unless you are very old, or have an underlying medical condition you will be OK. Of course, it won't be much fun, but neither is flu or a bad cold. We have the best part of 8 billion human beings infesting the planet, so if we lose a few million, does it really matter that much ?



On another point, Ebola was far more dangerous, and equally as contagious, so why didn't that become a pandemic ?

Not seen anyone here panicking, just debating the current event that seems to have stretched much of the world's medical resources. As for over population, raising living standards in many developed countries seems to lower the birth rate — itself sometimes seen as causing future problems in some countries, with the elderly population becoming the greater part of the population. This is something that natural attrition and advanced automation might deal with in the future. In the meantime, very few communities in the free world appear to want throw their aged on the bonfire.

Ebola was first identified in the '70s and outbreaks were contained in significantly remote and rural societies with large amounts of aid coming from infection free countries — that's all distinctly different from coronavirus/COVID-19...

[T00ts]

Both my parents are dead, but that isn't of any relevance. 8 billion people, that's far to many. We should look at what's happening, and look logically

You don't have logic and you have no love for your fellow man either. I won't engage with you again.

[cromwell]

You know what wiggles, if YOU'RE not concerned about Covid, and it's not affecting YOUR mental health then I suggest you take your disgusting comments elsewhere.



Your comments on the elderly and the vulnerable on this forum, both on this thread and others, are disgusting. You have been told not to speak about how getting rid of the elderly in whichever way necessary, including Covid and also euthanasia, is a good thing, yet you do. Repeatedly.



Feck off you WUM, go find another playground for your filth. I'm 100% done with you, and I suspect most of the other members are too.

 :hattip  :hattip  :hattip

[Bright Young Thing]

Both my parents are dead, but that isn't of any relevance. 8 billion people, that's far to many. We should look at what's happening, and look logically

You know what wiggles, if YOU'RE not concerned about Covid, and it's not affecting YOUR mental health then I suggest you take your disgusting comments elsewhere.



Your comments on the elderly and the vulnerable on this forum, both on this thread and others, are disgusting. You have been told not to speak about how getting rid of the elderly in whichever way necessary, including Covid and also euthanasia, is a good thing, yet you do. Repeatedly.



Feck off you WUM, go find another playground for your filth. I'm 100% done with you, and I suspect most of the other members are too.

[Wiggles]

Because with Ebola you could see it coming. Covid19 is infectious before the symptoms are felt or seen. As for your comment on it only hits the old - I suggest you keep up with the news a little better. It is attacking all ages. In Italy many are in their 20's and 30's and it's not a sniffle, they are on oxygen for severe pneumonia. In case you haven't noticed people in chronic pain and inability to breathe are arriving at hospitals in greater numbers than are leaving, hence the hospitals getting swamped. This is already happening in London with staff at their wits end trying to help people get better. Normal flu does not become chronic pneumonia in as many patients. This is not normal flu and I think there is little doubt that if allowed to run it's course the resultant number of deaths will be more than any of us can imagine. I take it you have no parents or other relatives that you care about and are assuming that you are not on the death list. I hope you are right.

Both my parents are dead, but that isn't of any relevance. 8 billion people, that's far to many. We should look at what's happening, and look logically

[cromwell]

Seriously, why are you all panicking so much. Unless you are very old, or have an underlying medical condition you will be OK. Of course, it won't be much fun, but neither is flu or a bad cold. We have the best part of 8 billion human beings infesting the planet, so if we lose a few million, does it really matter that much ?



On another point, Ebola was far more dangerous, and equally as contagious, so why didn't that become a pandemic ?

Ìt is not panic,Borchester injects some humour in to his dissent.