This (above) is my UK home town of Brighton, on England's south coast. The photo was taken on Sunday 17th January 2021; just one day ago.
During one of the world's worst pandemics, and in one of the worst affected corners of the country, I can't see a single mask being worn.
I am well-aware that Brighton has a reputation for being slightly eccentric, raucous, and in all senses liberal, but one really wonders what these people think that 'Lockdown' actually means. Do they never listen to government advice? Of course if the infection rate was to rise again, it will all be Boris's fault; and nothing at all to do with this lot.
If people continue to behave like these idiots, we'll never get rid of Covid-19. And I'd really thought, this time, that people were abiding by the government's advice. No bloody chance!
I totally see how this can provoke anger and despair BUT....we are allowed outside for an hour of exercise and masks are not mandatory outside, so although these people are acting like idiots by not socially distancing until these rules are changed we will continue to see sights like this. One would hope that people would see the crowds and say "no way, Jose!" but if this is their form of exercise for the day then I don't know what the answer is. Sunday was also the one bright and sunny day amongst many days of grey gloom and rain so this would not have helped. Keep safe.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of things we are allowed to do, but that doesn't mean it's wise to do them. I really think they could have found better ways to get their exercise and fresh air. They all know that the virus is rampant in Brighton.
DeleteWearing a mask should be compulsory I think. At 88 I am sure I am seriously in need of regular vitamin D top ups - but I am staying in.
ReplyDeleteI would have thought it was common sense in crowds like this, but it appears not.
DeleteThat's not a good image. The deaths and daily cases are in the thousands in the UK. Looks like they may be rising.
ReplyDeleteYou could be stateless next winter if people don't change. You won't be allowed in. Start looking at Jamaica or Grenada.
Poor Boris. He almost pleads with people to be sensible, but they take no notice. I may be staying here; who knows!
DeleteThat seems totally unbelievable! Do they not read the daily statistics showing how the virus is rapidly spreading throughout the UK and the hospitals filling up?
ReplyDeleteI despair of the mentality of some in today's society.
Images like this do make me despair. I understand everyone's frustration - who isn't frustrated at the moment? - but this kind of thing will not help to make the virus to go away.
ReplyDeletePeople are not being asked to take a weapon risk losing their lives in a war, they are just asked to stay home, wear a mask and keep away from other people. It's hard after so many months but not that hard!!
There is definitely a perception amongst many that it's only a bad dose of the flu and it only kills of the old so it's no problem. Apart from being incredibly callous they don't see the bigger picture. It didn't help when ministers were, a year ago, referring to people as being "economically inactive" as if their lives don't count. Killing off granny and pocketing the inheritance to prop up their modern lifestyle is a popular concept with a certain age group.
And the rest of us hide at home, we have the beautiful Portchester castle, 10 minutes walk from our home, but we stay away, as photo's on our local facebook shows it's always busy there. I do walk once a week with a friend, but we wear our mask and find places much less busy. I'm with you on this idiots.
ReplyDeleteBrighton citizens appear to have misheard the government's "STAY AT HOME" message. En masse they must have imagined that the government had said "DON'T STAY AT HOME". Mind you, folk from Down South do tend to be quite thick.
ReplyDeleteIt's all those northerners who head south, pretending to be sophisticated southerners. They can never totally hide their origins.
DeleteSomeone, a Southerner, recently bemoaned the animosity Northerners showed towards Southerners. As a Northerner, and very proud of it, your comment simply, even though probably made as a joke, strengthens the contempt Northerners have for Southerners' arrogance. I'm disappointed in you, Cro.
DeleteI have heard that everybody down south has a double-barrelled surname. Girls are called Fiona, boys are called Tarquin and they like gymkhanas and asparagus. They read "The Daily Telegraph" and when they talk there's only one vowel sound which must be hellishly confusing.
DeleteHave no fear Graham, YP simply likes to have a go at my southern-ness. I do attempt occasionally to counteract, but get ticked-off for it.
Deletep.s. Rather disappointed to see that you aimed your criticism at me... and not at YP (a fellow 'northerner').
DeleteCro, your disappointment is justified. I am so used to being insulted by YP because I am a Liverpudlian/Lancastrian and not from his hallowed Yorkshire that I barely even notice his insults. I think it's basic insecurity manifesting itself as arrogance.
Delete"What larks, Pip."
DeleteSounds like fake news to me.
ReplyDeleteI just wish it was fake foolishness.
DeleteI am sorry, but it is clearly fake. Not one person in a mask in Green land? Faked doctored w.h.y. but it 'aint real.
DeleteI agree with Rachel. Unless Brighton is an extraordinary exception to the rule it's just bullshit. Well, fake, as Rachel says.
DeleteI too live at the South Coast of England, in a much bigger city than Brighton and the place is deserted. The few out and about in the centre, doing their food shopping wear masks - with few exceptions.
Just as a matter of interest: Where did you get this info from?
U
It was in The Mail on Sunday... I guarantee it's genuine.
DeleteI have done a bit of research the last half hour. The photo is genuine. Alas, the date it was taken appears not to be the correct one as reported. Let's just say when there was no lockdown.
DeleteBy all accounts, Brighton - apart from the odd few youngsters down the beach as soon as the sun comes out - is as dead as all British inner cities.
By way of anecdote, Cro, and not to shatter your belief in the "genuine": My father a journalist, his two best friends photographers - all three of them for a highly praised weekly magazine in the motherland. Occasionally they needed a photo - depicting a child. Say, how to cover the story of how some TV programmes have potential to frighten children. So, my father sat me at the table, one of his friends poised with camera, all lovely, friendly, hunky dory. Suddenly, my father puffed a mouth full of cigarette smoke into my face. They got a photo. An amazing photo. A convincing photo of a little nine year old - eyes wide open in shock, her hands raised to her mouth. And what do you know - the photo fitted the story. The true joke? We didn't even have a TV.
U
Well, I hope this photo was taken when they said it was, otherwise my failing faith in Journalists will take yet another dive!
DeleteYou see what you have done Cro, you have done what social media is so good at, spreading bad things that are largely untrue and readers of your blog, as shown in the comments, are lapping it up. In fact although people like to run this country down and think otherwise, most people are adhering to lockdown, the streets are quiet and in shops masks are worn and the people on the streets are scarce and few and far between and many wear masks although it is not compulsory to do so outside.
DeleteIt is fake. You can easily take a photo like that with a long lens which gives the illusion that people are crammed together. So says Jim Pickard, political correspondent from the Financial Times.
Deletehttps://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1351076835057143809
The whole of the Daily Mail is one big fake.
Cro, did you actually get the "fake" part of my anecdote? Let's forget about "fake" let's be benign and call it "staged".
DeleteI can only confirm what both Rachel and Meanqueen say. As to the Daily Mail: I am ashamed to say, and it was a first, not that long ago I hosted a dinner and one of my guests was so Daily Fail, I lost it. So unlike me. My composure fleeing the room, I left the table, my OWN dinner table. I didn't slam the door. But I sure did have to regroup in the privacy of my own company.
U
Here, it is the ones who wear the masks who get hissed at: "Lib!" (Liberal used as an epithet).
ReplyDeleteThat has mostly died down now that we've had our own outbreak in my county. The last time I was at Walmart, I saw no one arguing with the employee at the door about wearing a mask. It was a first.
Looking at that picture Cro,it seems to me that alot of people in the UK are just selfish or brain dead.It is just the same here in the Midlands.Only about 50% of people are wearing mask.The rest dont give a shit!.I just dont get what part of it they dont understand?.I hope that you and your lovely Family are well.Best wishes,Debi,xx
ReplyDeleteThey're all NUTS!
DeleteThat is ridiculous. And saddening.
ReplyDeleteI looked at that photo in the media this morning and thought to myself, "Cro wouldn't like to see that image of Brighton."
ReplyDeleteYou were right.
DeletePerhaps your tenants sent it to you to stop you moving back.
DeleteWell I had to change my trousers having seen the photo.
DeletePeople have reported that our small town appears as busy as ever, and the police here are busy turning away visitors to local beauty spots and beaches, some of whom have travelled hundreds of miles. Fake news? I doubt whether the police would allow fake reports of the people they have taken to court over stupid and irresponsible behaviour.
ReplyDeleteSelfish, ignorant people are everywhere. My daughter, who lives in California, the epicenter if Covid in America, sent me a photo yesterday. It was a picture of a group of maskless people holding signs saying, “Free Hugs”. She said they have been out there by the beach for weeks. People who pass by curse at them, but they continue their Covid spreading activities.
ReplyDeleteAmazing. But sadly believable.
DeleteMy immediate reaction was that it could not possibly have been taken yesterday because even here in at-the-moment-Covid-free (as far as we know) Lewis quite a few people wear masks in the town even and we have lots of wind and no crowds. However someone said the photo was in the media yesterday and the media would never lie. Surely!
ReplyDeleteIt's traditional on Sundays in Brighton to walk along the prom to Hove and back, but given the circumstances, I am very surprised to see the tradition continuing.
DeleteMaybe news of the vaccine roll out has people feeling more confident? More than 1/10th of our (county) population has had the virus; those folks can't get it again or spread it. There's a mask mandate here. Everyone follows it. Our daily new case numbers are 10X what they were in October. I don't know how and don't judge. We take care for ourselves as you do.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as any 'good news' hits the press, the loonies think they're safe to do whatever they wish. Maybe the government should just issue bad news.
DeleteIt’s not only that. Some people doesn’t think the “stay at home” applies to them. Just nip out for a newspaper, do almost daily shopping...I’ll be quick it will be all right
DeleteA damp squib.
ReplyDeleteSadly, Covidiots abound everywhere and people really have all of the information they'll ever need if they were not so irresponsible and content to be low-information people. I sometimes despair too.
ReplyDeleteI know a few.... total loonies!
DeleteI would be interested to know what “research” was conducted to conclude that this was indeed fake news. My limited googling would indicate the photos were authentic and were reported in local Brighton media. As to the comment that it was “fake” because a long lens was used. There are other photos that are straight on, no long lens used. So fear not Cro, you haven’t spread bad things that are largely not true.
ReplyDeleteAs to Debi’s comment on the brain power of some people. I was interested to read that apparently all this is to scare people to death so they are desperate for a vaccine, start jabbing people when it hasn't been properly tested!
I don’t understand why people are happy to consult doctors when they have a serious concern such as cancer...probably quite content to take chemotherapy without feeling the need to check the views of conspiracy theories such David Icke and Vernon Coleman but when it comes to COVID these people speak the truth....look to YouTube for the truth!
I guess it is the world of alternative facts.
And I should have said, you post title was perfect
ReplyDeleteI listen to Whitty, Vallance, and Van Dam, in the hope that they know far more about how to beat the virus than Icke or Coleman.
Deletere the 'long lens', I can assure you that Sundays on the Brighton/Hove Prom' was always crowded. It looks as if nothing much has changed.
DeleteI agree with you Cro.
DeleteThere was nothing fake about the crowds at Carsington Water the other weekend. The car park was full and overflowing and the walk around the lake was a continuous stream of people with children, pushchairs and dogs, all struggling to pass each other safely on the narrow path around the reservoir. Barely a mask to be seen except on one or two older folk. Social distancing was absent as people in one direction passed shoulder to shoulder with others going the opposite way.
DeleteWe took one look and went home.
Nah, that is not the way to beat the virus.
ReplyDeleteSilly people. Nonchalantly spreading the virus.
DeleteWe have towns here in Texas that don't adhere to the masking too. My son moved to one recently where his wife took a job as head nurse. The hospital is over-run with Covid patients... and still people in the town don't wear masks. It makes him so angry.
ReplyDelete