France is now in lockdown

In latest developments, there’s a sizable building on my normal work site¹ that houses a private medical hospital with theatres etc.
Well, it’s become empty of private patients in recent days and we have fibre links into the building² so…

¹ I’m undecided, is my normal work site here at my house or down the road on the hospital site where I spend less time?

This is a brilliant take on things…

https://m.xkcd.com/2287/
(mobile version, works with NetSurf, give it time to load…)

The no touch thing has limits and I’m predicting a large wave of new Chavs being born in about 9-10 months (only 10 for the cautious ‘virgin’ mothers)

The no touch thing has limits

You’re perfectly allowed to touch people in your own home. Given there’s not a lot else to do, I reckon there will be a fair few January babies……and divorces (for both extremes of the word “touch”).

We’re in stage 3 lockdown here. Whatever that means. I’d be happy if a lot of the social distancing rules were kept, but then I live in the country partly because I’m not a social butterfly. Not anxiety or fear. Just limited tolerance.

Within sight from my house I can see three homes where visitors still come and go freely – and none of these homes has residents that require assistance, one is a lad visiting his girlfriend every day and presumably going back to his own family at other times.

I went to Tesco’s this evening. With my wife (that’s important)

Traffic on the roads was sparser than a Sunday 4am run rather than the nose to tail 17:30¹ traffic.

Parking nearish to the door was a cinch.

The regime starts with a queue to use the self clean facilities for the trolley (but you have to take the trolley before cleaning to the start of the queue for cleaning).

Entry through the doors regulated by a two stage Tesco employee input control that clearly can’t deal with a pair shopping.
My eyesight isn’t good enough to drive and Chris can’t reach up to items on the top two levels of shelves.
Had the lecture about vulnerable people and helping the NHS (bite tongue) but we (mostly) maintained 2 metres and simply shouted to each other :)

Mixed availability of items on shelves – I didn’t look but Chris advises me there was no toilet paper. Do we have thousands of people with diarrhoea in Coventry? We did the normal top up on that on line the other week so we don’t give a s*** :)

The 2 metre gap markers on the floor are OK, the one-way arrows however were clearly laid out by someone who doesn’t shop or someone who wants to promote goods on the aisles that most people don’t visit. They irritated Chris who started making comments about shopping in an eastern European / Russian gulag.
She was in large company since most people seemed to be going the route they always do, which was fine by us because we were too.

Still no pasta on the shelves and unless you want 10 or 15 kilos of rice you’re out of luck there.²

Probably the worst shopping session I’ve had in years and there was hardly anyone there.

On a lighter note, the PFI contract holder for TV/radio distribution and public phone provision has dropped³ their £7.90 a day cost for TV etc and gives 2 free minutes of call time to a mobile.⁴ I wonder if they will take advantage of that if they get admitted and find themselves bored witless while recovering from our current pandemic? Or perhaps the alternate⁴

¹ It would have been earlier but there’s a problem on the VPN from Burton on Trent (yeah, the links are wide ranging)

The opposite experience to the one I had joining the ol’ fogeys queue at Waitrose on Saturday (Why is it assumed that older people all wake up crowing at the crack?). Everyone spaced themselves outside of their own accord waiting for the supermarket to open. As soon as they got inside they all forgot about it, going off in different directions and getting intimate to reach the veg. Like trying to play a video game avoiding them.

Before I get the comments, I should point out that we also shop at Morrisons, Sainsburys and anywhere else that has stuff we want, though not one the same day if I can dissuade my wife.

Before I get the comments, I should point out that we also shop at Morrisons, Sainsburys and anywhere else that has stuff we want, though not one the same day if I can dissuade my wife.

My father used to compare Tesco and Asda, saying “much of a muchness, but you get a better class of idiot at Tesco”
No doubt you make similar comparison with Waitrose and Tesco :)

BTW. Morrisons have always had a better canned range and the meats seem better. As to beers, since the association with the Bookers chain you find that generally Tesco is just shifting cheap big combine p*** while Morrisons do a decent range.
That said an enterprising local brewer is advertising sales by appointment¹ in bottles or take out containers, polycubes etc.
I wouldn’t recommend the latter unless you’re planning an illicit party in the speakeasy cellar.

¹ Support your local brewer, make arrangements to buy direct and then they get all your spend (until the VAT man cometh)

I didn’t look but Chris advises me there was no toilet paper. Do we have thousands of people with diarrhoea in Coventry?

I’ve seen suggestions that this isn’t actually too surprising. A good chunk of the country were until recently spending half of their waking hours at work, using work’s supply of commercial paper, and are now at home, using their own supply of domestic paper. It seems that the two aren’t actually the same stuff (even aside from the size of the rolls, it’s different composition), but because demand is usually flat and margins low, factories for both are designed to run at near-capacity 24/7. Which means that we are pushing the ability of the domestic toilet paper supply chain right now; however, if you wanted the commercial grade stuff, there could be companies around willing to do deals…

PS. Likewise a lot of the food ‘shortages’… Many of us are now making all of our meals at home, instead of buying one from the work canteen, local sandwich shop, nearby supermarket’s sandwich aisle – and again, it’s non-trivial to switch the supply chains for those over to filling the supermarket shelves overnight.

Many of us are now making all of our meals at home, instead of buying one from the work canteen, local sandwich shop, nearby supermarket’s sandwich aisle

Not only that, but the supermarkets typically work on “just in time” stocking, with no more than 24 hours of stock. When people were first told they might have to stay at home for 7 days, or in some cases 2 weeks, the immediate and perfectly understandable reaction was “if I won’t be able shop, then I need to have 2 weeks stock in the house”. This creates a pulse in demand of 2 weeks worth of supplies, which should eventually result in 2 weeks of oversupply.

A good chunk of the country were until recently spending half of their waking hours at work, using work’s supply of commercial paper, and are now at home, using their own supply of domestic paper.

Well the chunk I’m in has less than 50% of the staff in the building at any one time and the paper consumables are being used at the same rate as normal – here’s hoping that the guilty parties keep up the habit after this is over.

Can’t say that we are using more at home although the soap does get more use when I’m on a week home, on the on the week – no change.

Home or in the work load seems to be rising steadily.
I’m not on call this week so hopefully I won’t have anything to do for a couple of days. That’s good because Easter is cancelled.

but the supermarkets typically work on “just in time” stocking,

Things are starting to get back to normal at our supermarket. The things they don’t have now are more due to lack of supply (organic fresh milk apparently no longer comes in semi skimmed, it’s full cream only – they probably don’t have the employees to run the equipment twice (once for normal milk, once for organic). There are fewer bottles of soft drink. I wonder if there will be a toilet roll crisis?

with no more than 24 hours of stock

Yeah, it’s often quite evident as the JIT doesn’t withstand pattern changes. Sunny outside? Good luck finding a salad or premade sandwich.

To hit a system like that with The End Of The World, well, I just hope ordering is overseen by a person and not done automatically or the system will have crapped itself. What do you mean there’s no butter… at all? And bread? And flour? And eggs? And pasta? And rice? Argh! Argh! Bleep! [fx: pathetic smoke]

then I need to have 2 weeks stock in the house

According to photos I’ve seen (The Guardian?), most of that is now ending up in the bin. F***ing idiots.

which should eventually result in 2 weeks of oversupply.

Unless people are being smart enough to restock in a sensible manner?

That said, many years ago mom got a taste for calamari. So I’d buy a pack from the supermarket and fry them up (with just a dash of olive oil). She’d eat them, and since our freezer is a glorified ice box, I’d cook the rest and eat the battered outsides (squid rings are horrible rubbery monstrosities).
We did this for a while, and eventually mom went off them. Like me right now with carbonara sauce. Too much of something and it’s not so appealing any more. [tea and chocolate being exceptions!]
Next time we went to the supermarket, they had stocked maybe thirty bags of the stuff. Because the system was clearly “damn, this is popular, let’s order it in” but not quite smart enough to correlate to the points card and realise it was the same person buying it.

On a much sadder note, as shown on my current blog entry, there are loads of Lindt chocolate rabbits. And, well, not a lot of desire to celebrate Easter this year.
The company I work for is suffering, and I suspect the lack of Easter sales is going to hurt the chocolate companies.

And, my god, nice women in town runs a little salon du thé (tea shop). I usually buy a hot chocolate there as French tea isn’t anything to write home about. It’s organic, made with actual milk, and served with optional discussion. She was, actually, one of the main people I talked to last autumn. She’s pretty much self employed, and had to close because… I hope the government remembers people like her as the work has stopped, the income has stopped, but the bills haven’t.

although the soap

There’s a problem here.

We older folks regard soap as the product of the saponification of fats, it presents itself in bars.

However, the modern interpretation seems to embrace modern detergents which are not necessarily the same thing!

Liquid soap?

Let’s just call it handwash!

That depends. Good old sodium laureth sulfate does a good job. Ordinary bog standard hard soap is the best thing.

But when it comes to sanitiser gel, it has to have the alcohol in it. Those based upon benzalkonium chloride might be useful (or not! it’s a market with a lot of snake oil) at killing germs but it’s exactly zero use against a virus.

Just stick with soap. As in the solid thing that parents threatened to use to wash their children’s mouth out with when making age inappropriate comments.

Or, I guess, looking at the ingredient listed up the top, that’s in shampoo isn’t it? On the other hand, it doesn’t appear to be listed in the antibacterial washing up liquid (that mostly hides its ingredients with guff about anionic surfactants).

Good old sodium laureth sulfate does a good job.

So that’ll be sodium laurate then, in English.

And as for “sulfate” – that’s what the americans call it!

But then, how do you identify?

And as for “sulfate” – that’s what the americans call it!

Copy pasting from… Was it the CDC again or Johns Hopkins? I forget…

But then, how do you identify?

Wait, is this one of those Boy / Girl / Other things?

I feel like an Other. Some days more than…others.

But then, how do you identify?

I was thinking more Scottish, English, British, American, French (yes, they say “sulfate” as well!).

“Other” still applies.

[I’ve never really felt like I fit in anywhere]

I suppose, dare I say… EUROPEAN.

I was thinking more Scottish, English, British, American, French (yes, they say “sulfate” as well!).

I think you will find that the powers that be (IUPAC probably) decreed a couple of decades ago or more that sulfur, sulfate, etc was the official spelling for scientific papers and so on.

The powers that be also declared that kilobytes, megabytes, etc are to be powers of ten, not base 2 values. Something largely ignored by those who grew up in the 70s and 80s or those who don’t feel that it’s right to retroactively redefine decades of use based upon some notion of “it’s not correct”.
Thus meaning, when you see “KB”, “MB”, or “GB” these days, you don’t really know what it is (unless printed on a harddisc box, and we all know that they lie).

By the way – the soft study metal used for many things that iron used to be used for – four syllables or five?

Back on topic of the French lockdown – something mighty peculiar happening in the skies over La Loire Atlantique.

https://heyrick.eu/blog/index.php?diary=20200404

Clearly there are still those who would prefer to put some half-ass notion of “policy” above people’s safety.
I hope this gets the response that it is begging for.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/04/nhs-worker-quit-when-she-was-stopped-from-wearing-face-mask