Generic Virus Thread

[fightoffyour]

6 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

So his son definitely didn't have CV-19, his wife was sick but not with CV-19 and he "thinks" he had it?

I'm still not clear on who was sick, with what and when.

He wasn't sick when he drove up, but he was when he arrived - too sick to stand up - but well enough to drive his child to the hospital and then go get him the next day - then after a walk he felt better but not well enough to see properly so he drove to a local castle and had a play in the woods to check his eyesight. Refreshed after that he put his recently hospitalised son and recently unwell wife back into a car with him and drove the five hours back to London.

Meanwhile, his wife felt unwell, so he made her suffer a five hour car journey, which made her much worse and or better and she didn't feel well while she was there, but was well enough to look after everybody. Then he made her go for a walk and then subjected her to a terrifying drive whilst half blind on her birthday before putting her in a car of sick people and driving her five hours back to London.

His son meanwhile, wasn't unwell in London, so he dragged him out of the house, sat him next to his unwell mother in a small car and drove him five hours to a strange place they arrived in at midnight - causing the child to get so sick that he had to be hospitalised overnight - then forcing him to go out for a walk, forcing him into the terrifying car journey and making him play in bluebells. Once he felt almost well, it was the five hour car journey back to London with everyone else who had been sick again.

Is that all correct?

 

He was sick at some point and had poor eyesight and couldn’t stand up, she apparently couldn’t drive. Are we sure they weren’t just pissed?

[Genie]

6 hours ago, bickster said:

Yes they are. It's rare I say anything positive about bungalow Bill Esterson but I've never seen him don a copy and paste tweet before. They're making a point by doing a Tory

That was my interpretation too, shining a light on the Tory’s lack of independent thinking.

[Jareth]

The blog editing and lie about it should hopefully fill today's Cummings story slot - then tomorrow Boris in front of senior MPs bound to be grilled about it all. I think Boris is close to a famous gaff on this, can't take the pressure. Easy to not answer press questions, experienced MPs altogether different. 

[cyrusr]

7 hours ago, bickster said:

Yes they are. It's rare I say anything positive about bungalow Bill Esterson but I've never seen him don a copy and paste tweet before. They're making a point by doing a Tory

To be fair to @Stevo985, his initial take was the same as  mine. If what you say is right, it may be too clever, particularly for a instant reaction society created by social media. When you look at the reactions, it appears a lot of other people took that point as well, which led me to this response from Jonathan Reynolds:-

 

Which is actually the tactic of repeating the same message to get the point across. To me, it seems more intentional to focus people on the issue rather than a joke. As Jonathan Reynolds says though, it’s getting people talking about the message which was its ultimate aim anyway.

[snowychap]

 

[cyrusr]

Front page of Daily Heil: 

Whilst some newspapers are focusing more on the relaxation of lockdown, all of them have got this on their front page in some capacity.

My take, FWIW, is that he does think he is cleverer than most, if not all, and he thought he could charm everyone, or certainly a big enough % for this to go away. Sadly with Brexit and other issues, he twisted it as “little man against the world” and he had the backing of a lot of the right wing media of that agenda, which pushed that into the majority. With this though he’s lost that and he simply comes across as elitist. He thinks his presence is more important than the media’s, but I don’t think so. Whilst the powers of mainstream media does seem to be weakening with social media, we are not there yet and this cover from one of their biggest advocates is pretty damning. This is a massive misjudgment by Cummings and the government and it doesn’t seem to be going away. Johnson should just be glad that he’s not got an election anytime soon.

[Dodgyknees]

Even if there was an election soon, I'm sure the public will fall in love with another slogan 

[Stevo985]

57 minutes ago, cyrusr said:

To be fair to @Stevo985, his initial take was the same as  mine. If what you say is right, it may be too clever, particularly for a instant reaction society created by social media. When you look at the reactions, it appears a lot of other people took that point as well, which led me to this response from Jonathan Reynolds:-

 

Which is actually the tactic of repeating the same message to get the point across. To me, it seems more intentional to focus people on the issue rather than a joke. As Jonathan Reynolds says though, it’s getting people talking about the message which was its ultimate aim anyway.

That was my thinking. Even if it was a piss take of the Tories (which that reply from Reynolds suggests it isn't but we'll go with it anyway), I don't think most people will get that. You only have to look at the replies to any of the tweets to see everyone taking the piss out of them for parroting the same message.

Then if they came out and said "It was a joke, we were taking the piss out of the Tories" everyone would just say yeah whatever, course you were, a likely story.

 

But as I said, that reply from Reynolds suggests it wasn't a pisstake of the tories at all

[cyrusr]

14 minutes ago, avfcDJ said:

Even if there was an election soon, I'm sure the public will fall in love with another slogan 

Sadly, I think you maybe right. The impact of facebook/twitter/et al on politics and how people are now getting their news is really concerning. It's more about the instant headline, the quick quip and slogans to get the clicks and get the revenue. However, starting to stray off topic!

[Stevo985]

31 minutes ago, avfcDJ said:

Even if there was an election soon, I'm sure the public will fall in love with another slogan 

They don't need another slogan. I still think the Tories will come out of this better than ever.

Amazing really.

[Davkaus]

The driving to test his eyesight was a move to get people to focus on the absurdity of the excuse for that and move the talk away from just general disregarding the lockdown, wasn't it? Gove can hardly keep  a straight face defending it, and the PM was even wheeled out to pull a pair of glasses out that he's never been seen with before, all while...blurred vision isn't a symptom, is it? 

[Stevo985]

1 minute ago, Davkaus said:

The driving to test his eyesight was a move to get people to focus on the absurdity of the excuse for that and move the talk away from just general disregarding the lockdown, wasn't it? Gove can hardly keep  a straight face defending it, and the PM was even wheeled out to pull a pair of glasses out that he's never been seen with before, all while...blurred vision isn't a symptom, is it? 

It isn't.

But even if it was, it makes the excuse of going for a drive even more ludicrous.

I'm still annoyed nobody pulled out the wife's birthday line.

[StefanAVFC]

They're just laughing at us.

Tell the plebs any old story and move on. It's clearly the strategy. 

[fightoffyour]

Praying for evidence of further trips to surface

[Straggler]

1 hour ago, cyrusr said:

To be fair to @Stevo985, his initial take was the same as  mine. If what you say is right, it may be too clever, particularly for a instant reaction society created by social media. When you look at the reactions, it appears a lot of other people took that point as well, which led me to this response from Jonathan Reynolds:-

 

Which is actually the tactic of repeating the same message to get the point across. To me, it seems more intentional to focus people on the issue rather than a joke. As Jonathan Reynolds says though, it’s getting people talking about the message which was its ultimate aim anyway.

All I want is clear leadership from actual humans with a hint of empathy. This makes them look more like mindless automatons regardless of the intention. Just because they have a name for the tactic does not make it a smart thing to do. Over the top was a tactic...

People were already talking about the message anyway, driving engagement whilst everyone is so utterly pissed off is not a problem. The response of saying it is called message discipline and saying it worked because we are talking about is just sounds like more of the 'we are smarter than you' bs that Cummings is delivering. For me the overall effect is that they are listening to a crappy marketing agency ahead of using their own intelligence and I think less of them for it.

[Stevo985]

1 minute ago, StefanAVFC said:

They're just laughing at us.

Tell the plebs any old story and move on. It's clearly the strategy. 

Yep.

Loads of people don't believe it. In fact I'd say the vast majority of people don't believe it.

But they have hoards of people who will defend literally anything they do so they'll just keep blindly defending him and saying they believe every word and it's perfectly reasonable.

[StefanAVFC]

 

 

[Straggler]

What does a failed eyesight test look like when you do it by driving a car? 

[foreveryoung]

Comon guys, that he had to refer to his written statement every time he had a question begs the thought most of it was rubbish, It just didn't add up. an to allow him to spout that bullshit to the public thinking it was acceptable story and believable is utter disrespectful to us as a whole nation. Another bullshit part was when he quoted from the rules and it literally didn't back up anything he actually did. These people really live in another world thinking we would believe the eyesight drive, my god I would love to have a one on one with him about that.

it is a fact also he does think he is special. The only guy in the government thinking it is acceptable to turn up to number 10 in a beenie hat and jeans. speaks volumes.

Edited May 26, 2020 by foreveryoung

[Genie]

I liked the bit where he started to slag off the place he was staying, but then thought better off it and changed tack.