lager loud

I know. But I’ve been working on my PMA: may have gone too far this time.

Interesting. Works that way because it seems no season tickets have been sold yet, so people can be clear about what they are getting if they commit their initial £70. But that seems like a pretty good approach to me. I wonder if our admin could cope with a similar system, but with pro-rata refunds for SC holders who choose not to put their names forward or lose out in the ballot. If so, that would be a good way to give the maximum satisfaction to the maximum number of fans: those who don’t want to attend games wouldn’t have to pay for them; and I suspect there would be enough SC holders who didn’t want to attend to allow most or all of those who did, to go. There might even be seats for non-SC holders if/when the limit is relatively generous.

I’m in the same position and feel the same way. I’m not going back to pubs yet - not because of any particular concern about Covid 19 but because with the current restrictions it wouldn’t be the same experience. I feel the same about the football: I’ve had more entertainment from the banter with those around me than the football in recent times and wouldn’t be interested in watching games effectively on my own. I suspect there will be plenty of us who, for various reasons, would take the option of giving up our SC for a full refund (or giving it up for the first 6-10 games, say, until restrictions ease, with a pro-rata refund). I'd prefer not to give up my right to renew for the following season if I took such an option, but would take that risk if i had to. I really don’t want the hassle of making a decision game by game (as it will be the same decision until we’re pretty much back to normal) and I suspect the Club couldn’t cope with the administration of that. I’m not sure what the legal position is: arguably, I’ve bought a ticket that entitles me to attend every league game, and as soon as it’s clear that won’t be possible the Club will have failed to satisfy its side of the contract and I should be entitled to a full refund. It was a bit different this season as I’d already had the option of attending 18/23 games so a full refund clearly wouldn’t have been appropriate. Of course the club might encourage me not to claim a refund by telling me I’m not a real supporter, that I’ll lose all my SC privileges, will be named and shamed on social media and will be tasered if I approach the ground. They were too easy on us last time.

Do they work for you? Are you Miss Millie? ?

Oh no! I was planning to use them on Saturday.

I think normal life will be on hold for a long time - although it’s possible rules might be relaxed from time to time. There are only two ways this recedes: either we get a vaccine or herd immunity develops. The reason the original herd immunity strategy was abandoned is that it would have led to a massive overburdening of our critical care capacity. What’s happening now is an attempt to let the virus spread at a manageable rate - but that also slows the progress to herd immunity. Eradicating it in the UK, even if possible, wouldn’t resolve the problem unless we could absolutely isolate ourselves from the rest of the world until the virus was no longer a problem i.e. vaccine or global herd immunity, One of the possibilities outlined in the Imperial College study is a series of periods of “tighter and looser” constraints - lockdown when there’s a risk of critical care beds being overburdened, relaxed temporarily when cases come down, then turned on again before capacity is threatened. I suspect that’s what we’ll see. Quite what “looser” would look like, I’ve no idea (shops but no pubs? Behind closed doors sport but none live?) I can see problems with a position where those who have had the virus have advantages over those who haven’t: if some are working and earning (and able to circulate freely) whilst others aren’t, the latter would feel hard done by and, logically, would be given an incentive to expose themselves to the virus to get back to normal. And how would the authorities be able to ensure only those “permitted” are out and about? As I say, I don’t know the answers and am glad I'm not the one who has to make the decisions. I strongly believe this initial lockdown will extend well beyond the next three weeks. I expect to see BJ in a couple of weeks congratulating us on our efforts, and telling us there are signs it’s working, so we just need to carry on for a while longer. The game changer would be if it turns out that a large number of people have had the virus. That would indicate that the proportion of sufferers who need hospital and critical care would be lower than currently projected, so that the disease could circulate more freely without jeopardising critical care capacity, and would allow us to get to herd immunity sooner. Fingers crossed.

Don’t know if this has been mentioned, but the government has confirmed that such children CAN visit each parent. On BBC live updates at 9.06, and Michael Gove on Twitter. Hope your partner’s daughter can sort this out amicably for the sake of everyone involved.

Guidance on gov.uk says: Travelling to and from work, but only where this absolutely cannot be done from home. Which suggests a lot of trade can continue... But there’s only two pages of guidance ATM, which suggests they haven’t worked out all the detail.

You think our Swedish friend is going to Purgatory?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/marcus-rashford-teams-up-fareshare-21723414 Something good here, which I found when I was searching for news about this charity, which I’ve just started volunteering for one day a week. Well done Marcus R. Along with the Gary Neville/Ryan Giggs hotel news it almost makes it difficult to dislike Man United.

That’s good to know. I like the Mezze and have been trying to find out which restaurants are doing takeaways. Local pubs are, but I’m not the biggest fan of pub food so will mostly try to support them by buying their take out beer. On another note, one consolation of this situation is you’ll have time to study the HMHB back catalogue so you can enjoy their next concert even more than the recent one. Was that really only a fortnight ago???

OK. Cheers.

I’ve got one I won’t be using. If you can PM me we can work out how to get it to you.

47% on BBC