Clarkson vs Covid (but mostly the BBC)

[chrisjpainter]

I'm not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but here it's easily accessible. For those with a Times subscription, Clarkson's written an excellent little piece on his response to having Covid

Jeremy Clarkson: I got Covid for Christmas. I’m not going to lie, it was quite scary | News | The Sunday Times (thetimes.co.uk)

for those that don't, or don't want to go to the site, here it is...

'

FOUR DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, I woke in the night to find my sheets were soggy. And that I had a constant dry cough. So, the next morning, I borrowed a kit from my girlfriend and, after a nerve-racking 20-minute wait, a line didn’t appear on the testing equipment. Phew. I wasn’t pregnant.

But did I have the coronavirus? Naturally, I went online to read all I could, and I quickly discovered the list of unofficial symptoms is so long that it includes absolutely everything. Shooting pains in your legs. Tennis elbow. Housemaid’s knee. Loose stools. Dizziness. A loss of taste. According to the internet, if you have anything at all, you should definitely get into your car and drive to Swindon, or Redcar, where recently trained civilians in white coats will tell you after a day, or two, or three, whether you must stay at home — or you should simply stay at home.

Instead, because I know everything on the internet and social media is always wrong, I used an actual doctor and an actual laboratory, which revealed that I did have the coronavirus. And, immediately, all my friends wanted to know the same thing: “Who gave it to you?” Er, possibly someone who decided to drizzle a bit of bat onto his pork chop. But I couldn’t see how that information would help me get better.

The doctor was very clear: I’d feel under the weather for between five and 14 days and then I’d either get better or I’d have to go to hospital. Where, because I am 60 and fat, and because I’ve smoked half a million cigarettes and had double pneumonia, I’d probably die, on my own, in a lonely plastic tent.

Naturally, social media had their own ideas on how I should stop this happening. Mostly, they involved kale and berries, washed down with cider vinegar and fair-trade honey. Basically, I had to eat everything from the Labour Party annual climate change and peace conference menu. Including the menu itself.

I also had to self-isolate. The government has been very clear on how this should be done: no going to the gym and no visits to any other household unless it’s with your mother’s stepchildren, who you may see, indoors, on a Tuesday, if you sit nearest the mantelpiece.

However, it has been much less specific on how you are supposed to isolate from your other half and her children when you’re all squidged up in the smallest cottage in Christendom. Who gets the bathroom? Who gets the fridge? In the end, I took myself off to bed with the new Don Winslow book and a bag of kale to wait for the Grim Reaper to pop his head round the door. I’m not going to lie — it was quite scary.

With every illness I’ve had, there has always been a sense that medicine and time would eventually ride to the rescue, but with Covid-19 you have to lie there, on your own, knowing that medicine is not on its way and that time is your worst enemy. And that everything you read on WhatsApp and Twitter is nonsense: “My mate’s a doctor and he says that if you’re blood group O and smoke, you won’t get it.”

In desperation I’d tune into the BBC, where things were even worse because all it did was try to belittle Boris Johnson by going onto the streets and asking passers-by what they’d do. If there’s ever an award for truly lamentable journalism, the BBC’s News at Six team should win it for its efforts last year. Its message has been constant. You’re going to die. And the Tories are to blame.

It’s strange, but when people catch cancer, they are always told about people who had the exact same thing and got better. No one says: “Ooh, you’ve got it in the liver? I had a mate who got it there. Dead in a week.” But it seems that’s what you get from the BBC. Doom, with added gloom.

I didn’t feel too bad. To start with, it was like the sort of cold where you carry on as normal while women point fingers at you and say: “I suppose you’re going to say it’s man flu?” And you say no and get in the car and go to work. But then my breathing really did start to get laboured, and there was always the doctor’s warning ringing in my head about how it might suddenly get worse.

On Christmas Eve, it did. The Aga broke. Ordinarily I’d find someone who was away and use their oven. But no one was away. Everyone was at home, in their own micro-bubble, and even those with back-up cookers — which is everyone with an Aga — were unwilling to let me come round, because then their goose really would be cooked.

Still, on Christmas Day, my own children came round for 40 minutes and stood in the vegetable garden (we were in tier 2) around a fire that wouldn’t light properly, complaining about the smoke while I wheezed, in a full body mask, miles away from any form of heat, or them, trying to work out if it was safe in my condition to have a glass of champagne. The World Health Organisation said no. Other organisations said “definitely no”. But I persevered and eventually I found a website featuring a doctor in Darwin, who said that drinking in moderation when you have Covid is fine.

This is the problem we have. We keep being told that we know a great deal about Covid, but what I’ve learnt over the past 10 days is: we don’t. We don’t know how long we are infectious for. We don’t know how to tackle it. We don’t know what it does to us.

We don’t know how long the antibodies last. We don’t know how easy it is to catch it twice. And we certainly don’t know if any of the vaccines will work long-term. I don’t even know if I’m better now. Seriously, I have absolutely no idea.

Maybe the BBC should consider this and in future stop asking clever-clever questions designed to make Boris look foolish, and instead ask clever questions that will help us understand something that scares us.

 

[Rob85]

A brilliant piece that, I wish people would stop bashing Boris, no matter what he does he will get bashed. Sadly it is likely we will get a Labour government in the next election, especially with the amount of people that seem to have become socialist/communist apologists. I've even seen idiots parroting on Facebook about how China done it better than us and their people are having parties and are out in night clubs.....they cant grasp that the nightclub pictures were a propaganda exercise!

Covid really is working to China's advantage now, that's why I still have it screaming in the back of my mind that letting it spread was a deliberate act, recently uncovered evidence has shown it was possibly spreading to europe in september or earlier of 2019

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Yes a good read from someone who has had it.

Thank you for bringing it to our attention Chris.

[Cosmicblue]

Love him or hate him Clarkson writes well.

[Retsdon]

1 minute ago, Rob85 said:

I wish people would stop bashing Boris, no matter what he does he will get bashed.

That's because he deserves to be bashed. IMHO the biggest threat to Britain isn't Brexit; it isn't Covid; it isn't immigration  - it's the breakdown of trust between government and governed. That trust is what underpins a western democracy. It's not possible to have government by consent without it.  Undermine it enough, and history shows that eventually there'll either be a breakdown of the institutions and functioning of the state, or else the state will morph into a police state (if people don't consent then they'll have to be forced). 

And there can't be trust when the government can't be trusted to tell the truth. Everyone accepts that all governments are occasionally 'economical with the truth' but this government lies brazenly and openly as a matter of policy, so much so that it's got to the point that large swathes of the population don't believe a word they says on any topic at all. It wasn't always like that. At one time it wouldn't have been possible for newspapers to openly call the serving Prime Minister a bald-faced liar without grave risk of being sued out of court.  Now anyone can do it without a care because everyone knows it's absolutely true.

This culture of dishonesty is very dangerous and corrosive to society. Just look at the Covid thing.  Even when Hancock tells the truth, millions of people are so gun-shy of the constant fibs that they instead go hunting for information on the net, often from dubious sources. Then the algos do the rest and if's off the wacky races. Half the population believes a totally different set of 'facts' to the other half. How can society operate harmoniously like that? it's just not possible.

And the root of the problem is this culture of dishonesty and shamelessness. Lie, take a bribe, give contracts to your mates and connections...so what? At one time ministers would have been forced to resign, either by public opinion or by the leader of the government. Not any more. The whole government from the Prime Minister down think like crims. 'Wot you gonna do about it?' is their response to anything they're caught out at. And of course they're right. If you have a system that relies on an honour code to work it will break down when the people running it are devoid of honour themselves.

This isn't a left or right thing.  It's about basic integrity and the necessity of integrity to maintain the very fabric of government and the machinery that society relies on to work. Because without it, the country is in danger of going right down the rabbit hole.

And that's why Boris deserves to be bashed.

[Scully]

19 minutes ago, Cosmicblue said:

Love him or hate him Clarkson writes well.

He does. I’ve read his column for years, either in the Times or the compilations of such in book form. I don’t always agree with everything he says, but he’s always entertaining. 

[enfieldspares]

The above, by RETSDON, should be published in The Times. Concise, to the point, all true. 

Edited January 2, 2021 by enfieldspares

[peck]

The last paragraph in the article says it all,   

 

"  Maybe the BBC should consider this and in future stop asking clever-clever questions designed to make Boris look foolish, and instead ask clever questions that will help us understand something that scares us.  "

I would just like to add. This thing is something we in modern times have not had to face, its a completely new and vicious virus that we have never had to face, its something akin to the black death that wiped out millions on people when it was about years ago, thank god we have some understanding of the way virus's work and were able to produce a vaccine that will hopefully enable us in a few months go back to how lived in 2019 before this virus hit us. 

Every day scientists are learning more about it and lets hope we can defeat it. Let politicians if need be revise the situation every day without the bile of journalists trying to make a name for themselves

 For Christ's sake let the politicians get on with trying to control the spread without most journalists as Clarkeson says "trying to make Boris look foolish.       

[armsid]

Ask Kate Garroway this is not a flu Her husband caught it and had to be put into an induced coma to get through it.He is still suffering now, is it BOJO,S fault?As regards the Chines i would not trust anything they say as has been said it was probably around earlier than they said and were trying to contain it

[Gordon R]

A decent article by Clarkson. 

Got to love Retsdon's impartial critique.

Quote

This isn't a left or right thing.

Quote

And that's why Boris deserves to be bashed.

No mention of Corbyn - the serial liar. No mention of Starmer and his so far unfulfilled promise to rid the Labour Party of anti-semitism or his offer to work with the Government, putting party politics to one side.

Straight for Boris. Not a trace of bias at all. 🤥

[figgy]

Starmer or should be Smarmer gets right on my pink pointy bits.

All he does is spout in hindsight what he would do and what Boris didn't do, or didn't do quick enough, the man is as bad as wee Jimmy Crankie. In times like we have now all the parties should be mucking in not scoring points.

Edited January 2, 2021 by figgy

[WalkedUp]

7 hours ago, figgy said:

All he does is spout in hindsight what he would do

That is not based in fact. Even a non-Labour voter like me can see that he calls for things in advance. Such as a November lockdown. If BoJo had an ounce of foresight we would have a much better result. The need for the first lockdown. Schools and universities going back in September. November lockdown. Christmas.  Some of these are in the calendar!

BoJo’s handling of the epidemic has been like my mum managing the heating in her house. She’s a little cold so thermostat on 32°C, 1hr later she’s too hot so every window and door is open. Then there’s a draught....

[Scully]

11 hours ago, enfieldspares said:

The above, by RETSDON, should be published in The Times. Concise, to the point, all true. 

If you believe it to be true, then you must also believe it has equally applied to any and all parties and governments we’ve ever had. 

[Centrepin]

I wonder who else read it in Clarksons voice🤣

Yes, he does write well, always entertaining.

[JDog]

15 hours ago, Retsdon said:

That's because he deserves to be bashed. IMHO the biggest threat to Britain isn't Brexit; it isn't Covid; it isn't immigration  - it's the breakdown of trust between government and governed. That trust is what underpins a western democracy. It's not possible to have government by consent without it.  Undermine it enough, and history shows that eventually there'll either be a breakdown of the institutions and functioning of the state, or else the state will morph into a police state (if people don't consent then they'll have to be forced). 

And there can't be trust when the government can't be trusted to tell the truth. Everyone accepts that all governments are occasionally 'economical with the truth' but this government lies brazenly and openly as a matter of policy, so much so that it's got to the point that large swathes of the population don't believe a word they says on any topic at all. It wasn't always like that. At one time it wouldn't have been possible for newspapers to openly call the serving Prime Minister a bald-faced liar without grave risk of being sued out of court.  Now anyone can do it without a care because everyone knows it's absolutely true.

This culture of dishonesty is very dangerous and corrosive to society. Just look at the Covid thing.  Even when Hancock tells the truth, millions of people are so gun-shy of the constant fibs that they instead go hunting for information on the net, often from dubious sources. Then the algos do the rest and if's off the wacky races. Half the population believes a totally different set of 'facts' to the other half. How can society operate harmoniously like that? it's just not possible.

And the root of the problem is this culture of dishonesty and shamelessness. Lie, take a bribe, give contracts to your mates and connections...so what? At one time ministers would have been forced to resign, either by public opinion or by the leader of the government. Not any more. The whole government from the Prime Minister down think like crims. 'Wot you gonna do about it?' is their response to anything they're caught out at. And of course they're right. If you have a system that relies on an honour code to work it will break down when the people running it are devoid of honour themselves.

This isn't a left or right thing.  It's about basic integrity and the necessity of integrity to maintain the very fabric of government and the machinery that society relies on to work. Because without it, the country is in danger of going right down the rabbit hole.

And that's why Boris deserves to be bashed.

Only Daily Mirror readers would be interested in this drivel.

 

14 hours ago, enfieldspares said:

The above, by RETSDON, should be published in The Times. Concise, to the point, all true. 

Ditto.

Edited January 3, 2021 by JDog

[Gordon R]

Quote

That is not based in fact. Even a non-Labour voter like me can see that he calls for things in advance.

That is true. He called for anti-semites to be kicked out of the Labour Party. Sadly, he hasn't delivered.

Whether you like Johnson or not, he has delivered - not perfect in every respect, whereas Starmer merely promises.

[CharlieT]

39 minutes ago, JDog said:

Only Daily Mirror readers would be interested in this drivel.

 

I am minded to believe it was cut and pasted from the Morning Star.

[Dave-G]

18 hours ago, chrisjpainter said:

I'm not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but here it's easily accessible. For those with a Times subscription, Clarkson's written an excellent little piece on his response to having Covid

Jeremy Clarkson: I got Covid for Christmas. I’m not going to lie, it was quite scary | News | The Sunday Times (thetimes.co.uk)

for those that don't, or don't want to go to the site, here it is...

'

FOUR DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, I woke in the night to find my sheets were soggy. And that I had a constant dry cough. So, the next morning, I borrowed a kit from my girlfriend and, after a nerve-racking 20-minute wait, a line didn’t appear on the testing equipment. Phew. I wasn’t pregnant.

But did I have the coronavirus? Naturally, I went online to read all I could, and I quickly discovered the list of unofficial symptoms is so long that it includes absolutely everything. Shooting pains in your legs. Tennis elbow. Housemaid’s knee. Loose stools. Dizziness. A loss of taste. According to the internet, if you have anything at all, you should definitely get into your car and drive to Swindon, or Redcar, where recently trained civilians in white coats will tell you after a day, or two, or three, whether you must stay at home — or you should simply stay at home.

Instead, because I know everything on the internet and social media is always wrong, I used an actual doctor and an actual laboratory, which revealed that I did have the coronavirus. And, immediately, all my friends wanted to know the same thing: “Who gave it to you?” Er, possibly someone who decided to drizzle a bit of bat onto his pork chop. But I couldn’t see how that information would help me get better.

The doctor was very clear: I’d feel under the weather for between five and 14 days and then I’d either get better or I’d have to go to hospital. Where, because I am 60 and fat, and because I’ve smoked half a million cigarettes and had double pneumonia, I’d probably die, on my own, in a lonely plastic tent.

Naturally, social media had their own ideas on how I should stop this happening. Mostly, they involved kale and berries, washed down with cider vinegar and fair-trade honey. Basically, I had to eat everything from the Labour Party annual climate change and peace conference menu. Including the menu itself.

I also had to self-isolate. The government has been very clear on how this should be done: no going to the gym and no visits to any other household unless it’s with your mother’s stepchildren, who you may see, indoors, on a Tuesday, if you sit nearest the mantelpiece.

However, it has been much less specific on how you are supposed to isolate from your other half and her children when you’re all squidged up in the smallest cottage in Christendom. Who gets the bathroom? Who gets the fridge? In the end, I took myself off to bed with the new Don Winslow book and a bag of kale to wait for the Grim Reaper to pop his head round the door. I’m not going to lie — it was quite scary.

With every illness I’ve had, there has always been a sense that medicine and time would eventually ride to the rescue, but with Covid-19 you have to lie there, on your own, knowing that medicine is not on its way and that time is your worst enemy. And that everything you read on WhatsApp and Twitter is nonsense: “My mate’s a doctor and he says that if you’re blood group O and smoke, you won’t get it.”

In desperation I’d tune into the BBC, where things were even worse because all it did was try to belittle Boris Johnson by going onto the streets and asking passers-by what they’d do. If there’s ever an award for truly lamentable journalism, the BBC’s News at Six team should win it for its efforts last year. Its message has been constant. You’re going to die. And the Tories are to blame.

It’s strange, but when people catch cancer, they are always told about people who had the exact same thing and got better. No one says: “Ooh, you’ve got it in the liver? I had a mate who got it there. Dead in a week.” But it seems that’s what you get from the BBC. Doom, with added gloom.

I didn’t feel too bad. To start with, it was like the sort of cold where you carry on as normal while women point fingers at you and say: “I suppose you’re going to say it’s man flu?” And you say no and get in the car and go to work. But then my breathing really did start to get laboured, and there was always the doctor’s warning ringing in my head about how it might suddenly get worse.

On Christmas Eve, it did. The Aga broke. Ordinarily I’d find someone who was away and use their oven. But no one was away. Everyone was at home, in their own micro-bubble, and even those with back-up cookers — which is everyone with an Aga — were unwilling to let me come round, because then their goose really would be cooked.

Still, on Christmas Day, my own children came round for 40 minutes and stood in the vegetable garden (we were in tier 2) around a fire that wouldn’t light properly, complaining about the smoke while I wheezed, in a full body mask, miles away from any form of heat, or them, trying to work out if it was safe in my condition to have a glass of champagne. The World Health Organisation said no. Other organisations said “definitely no”. But I persevered and eventually I found a website featuring a doctor in Darwin, who said that drinking in moderation when you have Covid is fine.

This is the problem we have. We keep being told that we know a great deal about Covid, but what I’ve learnt over the past 10 days is: we don’t. We don’t know how long we are infectious for. We don’t know how to tackle it. We don’t know what it does to us.

We don’t know how long the antibodies last. We don’t know how easy it is to catch it twice. And we certainly don’t know if any of the vaccines will work long-term. I don’t even know if I’m better now. Seriously, I have absolutely no idea.

Maybe the BBC should consider this and in future stop asking clever-clever questions designed to make Boris look foolish, and instead ask clever questions that will help us understand something that scares us.

 

I likes thaa aat. 

[Walker570]

17 hours ago, Cosmicblue said:

Love him or hate him Clarkson writes well.

Yep.  I particularly like him because he often speaks the TRUTH.

[JDog]

3 hours ago, CharlieT said:

I am minded to believe it was cut and pasted from the Morning Star.

And not acknowledged?

Retsdon would have us believe he has some intellect.

[chrisjpainter]

5 hours ago, JDog said:

Only Daily Mirror readers would be interested in this drivel.

 

Ditto.

 

1 hour ago, JDog said:

And not acknowledged?

Retsdon would have us believe he has some intellect.

 

And as we all know, the best way to demonstrate intellect is through childish insults...Debating an opinion that's contrary to our own is for losers; throwing lexical rocks at people's heads is much more the territory of the enlightened. 

[Walker570]

17 hours ago, figgy said:

Starmer or should be Smarmer gets right on my pink pointy bits.

All he does is spout in hindsight what he would do and what Boris didn't do, or didn't do quick enough, the man is as bad as wee Jimmy Crankie. In times like we have now all the parties should be mucking in not scoring points.

If he was any good he would be earning a fortune in the Chambers.  Pathetic.

[grrclark]

1 hour ago, chrisjpainter said:

And as we all know, the best way to demonstrate intellect is through childish insults...Debating an opinion that's contrary to our own is for losers; throwing lexical rocks at people's heads is much more the territory of the enlightened. 

👍

[Retsdon]

Sorry, I didn't mean to stir up a row, but I really, genuinely, fear that this government is doing terrible damage to the British political system. It's not the policies (although I'm not too keen on them) it's the serial and brazen dishonesty and unaccountability, which is on a scale far surpassing even Blair's government (who probably started the rot). As for Starmer and Corbyn, well, they're not in government, but if they were I'd have exactly the same viewpoint if they and their ministers cynically lied to the extent that this government does. And that's the thing. If this serial dishonesty in political life is going to be crimped it will need ordinary people to call out their OWN side as well. When you give Johnson and Gove a free pass when they lie it's no different to an Argentinian supporter praising the 'hand of God'. But I don't know, maybe that's how people just are in Britain now. It's a dangerous road to go down though. Without a common, across the board standard of acceptable morality and behaviour we're straight into jungle law. And it's not such a big step.

As for Clarkson, he's funny. But he's slick too. Take this -

According to the internet, if you have anything at all, you should definitely get into your car and drive to Swindon, or Redcar, where recently trained civilians in white coats will tell you after a day, or two, or three, whether you must stay at home — or you should simply stay at home.

Instead, because I know everything on the internet and social media is always wrong, I used an actual doctor and an actual laboratory, ...

Fine, but perhaps more accurate would have been , 'because I'm rich and can afford it, I didn't have to drive around looking for some badly run test centre in the the middle of nowhere  and then queue  for ages like other poor s*ds have to do. Instead I could pay to see a real doctor straight away and get an instant fast-track test done'.  But of course, the bare facts lack the humorous edge for which he gets paid very well. I've got about 3 of Clarkson's books on my bookshelf and I really enjoy his writing. But 'truth' isn't really what he's about.... Hmm...

 

[Cawdor118]

5 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

Sorry, I didn't mean to stir up a row, but I really, genuinely, fear that this government is doing terrible damage to the British political system. It's not the policies (although I'm not too keen on them) it's the serial and brazen dishonesty and unaccountability, which is on a scale far surpassing even Blair's government (who probably started the rot). As for Starmer and Corbyn, well, they're not in government, but if they were I'd have exactly the same viewpoint if they and their ministers cynically lied to the extent that this government does. And that's the thing. If this serial dishonesty in political life is going to be crimped it will need ordinary people to call out their OWN side as well. When you give Johnson and Gove a free pass when they lie it's no different to an Argentinian supporter praising the 'hand of God'. But I don't know, maybe that's how people just are in Britain now. It's a dangerous road to go down though. Without a common, across the board standard of acceptable morality and behaviour we're straight into jungle law. And it's not such a big step.

As for Clarkson, he's funny. But he's slick too. Take this -

According to the internet, if you have anything at all, you should definitely get into your car and drive to Swindon, or Redcar, where recently trained civilians in white coats will tell you after a day, or two, or three, whether you must stay at home — or you should simply stay at home.

Instead, because I know everything on the internet and social media is always wrong, I used an actual doctor and an actual laboratory, ...

Fine, but perhaps more accurate would have been , 'because I'm rich and can afford it, I didn't have to drive around looking for some badly run test centre in the the middle of nowhere  and then queue  for ages like other poor s*ds have to do. Instead I could pay to see a real doctor straight away and get an instant fast-track test done'.  But of course, the bare facts lack the humorous edge for which he gets paid very well. I've got about 3 of Clarkson's books on my bookshelf and I really enjoy his writing. But 'truth' isn't really what he's about.... Hmm...