Meenzer

Except the Qatar World Cup isn't until the winter now. Salam alaikum!

Looks like Euro 2020 is being delayed by a whole year. Only sensible decision really, gives the club competitions a chance to restructure their seasons in the meantime.

Been doing it since 2004 so I'm hardly going to argue with the principle, but it does rely on actually having places to go, too. If we get to a full-on quarantine situation like in some countries where we're not even allowed to go out for a walk/run by ourselves... well, fuck it, I'll be doing laps of the back yard and uploading the activity to Strava

The delivery and content of Macron's speech compared with Johnson's, though.

At best, this is preparing the ground for a full shutdown so they can say in a few days' time "we asked you not to but you did it anyway, so now we're having to take action" and it doesn't seem quite as draconian so the peasants are less likely to revolt. More likely it's just fence-sitting, whether deliberately or through fear/incompetence. I've got several gigs and theatre shows booked for the next few weeks and as you say, for all it feels like a grown-up policy to be leaving it up to people to decide, it effectively amounts to forcing venues to make decisions on their customers' health and whether they want to absorb the impact of half-empty houses rather than just letting them close doors properly, reschedule and claim back what they can.

Couldn't wait for that rectal thermometer, eh?

I've had the same issue trying to track down a thermometer around here, and all the available ones on Amazon (which aren't many) are either super-expensive or they're shipped from the Far East with estimated delivery in the second half of April. I found this on eBay which is at least UK-based and claims it'll be delivered within the week, but at the price obviously it might be cheap tat and not actually do the job properly. Maybe worth a pop for a fiver though, assuming you haven't succumbed to the plague by then (by which I mean "hope it's nowt, get well soon" ) Not quite sure why we don't already own a thermometer when we've got more obscure things like blood pressure monitors in the house, but there we are...

At last, an upside to all of this! https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/isis-issues-travel-warning-over-coronavirus-pandemic/

At least the Russians are treating Eurovision with the seriousness it merits.

"This thing is going to be around for a year" is somehow still less depressing than the PM opening a speech by saying "your loved ones are going to die sooner than they should"

I got Aberdeen. Paging @JJ

This has made me think, I wonder how much of the panic-buying is from people who don't actually know how to cook, by which I mean do things like find alternative ingredients like you describe or rustle something up from what's available to them. This is not an endorsement of CT's logic-mangling substitution policy, just a general observation.

Sadly this does not tend to translate well to the "intimidating lads who were good at sports in year 11" category.

Aye, the Asda by here was fine just now - none of the stuff that's out everywhere (pasta, bog roll etc.) but otherwise all right. Busier than usual but not much panic/rudeness. Mind you, this is London so it'd be hard to tell the difference. Popped into the corner shop just up the road first to buy the things I knew they'd have & there was another customer in there marvelling at how many chick peas they had in stock. The owner gave him some bone-dry line about Sri Lankans having their own secret supply chains. He's a good bloke.

Austria's musical contribution to the world doesn't end there, folks!

Oh no, we have a villa holiday with friends booked for that week. In Tenerife.

Rotterdam. To be fair, I imagine it'll become an "everyone stays home and performs their song in a TV studio in their own country" type affair unless things get better any time soon. Bad news for the flag and glitter retailers of the Low Countries.

Eurovision hasn't been cancelled yet. All is fine.

On the plus side, No Deal is going to seem like an absolute doddle after this.

There is that. Small consolations.

All right then, definitely going to parkrun tomorrow morning if it might be the last one for several months.

Hard to know quite where to start with that one.

Elite football and Scottish football both suspended.