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Post by Hofmeister on Mar 24, 2020 17:09:27 GMT
HOOOOOoooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmm
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WDB
Full Member
Posts: 7,425 
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Post by WDB on Mar 24, 2020 17:23:28 GMT
Crikey — Zenhof! There’s hope for us all.
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Post by Humph on Mar 24, 2020 17:52:14 GMT
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Post by Hofmeister on Mar 24, 2020 18:10:43 GMT
Crikey — Zenhof! There’s hope for us all. gin helps prolong the zenism around 18:00 ish |
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Post by Humph on Mar 24, 2020 18:17:04 GMT
Oh, is it that time already?
Just a small one then...
😜
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Post by tyrednexited on Mar 24, 2020 18:35:52 GMT
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Post by EspadaIII on Mar 24, 2020 21:12:52 GMT
I have had two invitations to a virtual G&T but missed both due to Dad issues. Hoping to make virtual coffee tomorrow afternoon.
Had to go to a virtual funeral today. A lovely man of 60 who had been ill for five years but had made what appeared to be a reasonable recovery. He had a stroke five minutes after arriving home after driving back from a wedding in London in September and died yesterday. No one was permitted to attend the funeral other than the family, rabbi and some assistants. 300 people watched it on Zoom. No one is permitted to visit the family during the week of mouring we have; a time when normally a family is comforted by lots of people paying their respects, repeating nice memories about the deceased and easing the mourners back into daily life. Just so sad that a man of his quality should be sent off with less than the usual formalities.
We are now resticted to going less than 100m from our homes in Israel unless it is for medical or grocery buying purposes. The ministry of health wants total lockdown but the remainder of the government needs some economic activity... Its a real balancing act..
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Post by tyrednexited on Mar 25, 2020 12:55:21 GMT
Son has just in the midst of all this changed his rented accommodation (arrangements made before any sign of lockdown).
Had about a week's overlap of properties, and in that week everything has obviously gone pear-shaped.
They managed to clean the old place up fairly early, but we got a panicked message late in the week as he was "searching the shelves of a post-apocalyptic Tesco for the UK's last remaining bottle of spray-on oven cleaner".
They'd split his team of software engineers into two, with one week WFH, and one week in the office (though that had changed to full WFH within two days). Unfortunately, the broadband in the new place was waiting to be connected, which would have made that very awkward if "management" hadn't found a few corporate 4G routers down the back of the sofa somewhere.
Openreach withdrew from all premises entry yesterday, but luckily the line was already there in the new place, and the router is self-install. Working as of this morning.
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Rob
Full Member
Posts: 2,778
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Post by Rob on Mar 25, 2020 23:24:05 GMT
This is something Lygonos is more likely to know, but does anyone know if a typical ventilator just pumps air or are they plugged into an oxygen supply? I suspect the latter and therefore these hospitals are going to need to 'produce' a lot of oxygen. Probably a lot more than normal. I ask because a relative who had pneumonia was allowed to come home for their final hours/days. They needed a lot of oxygen due to the damage to the lungs and so we needed machines (oxygen concentrators) to 'produce it'. Because of the amount needed every second two very large machines were hooked in parallel to generate the necessary flow. The oxygen then mixed in the mask with 'air' . I do realise that when on a ventilator you are connected with a pipe that goes down your throat so not like for like. I think they were AirSep NewLife Intensity 10 Litre Oxygen Concentrators - we needed two so that was 20 litres per minute. They were very loud. And quite expensive. The company contracted to supply them had a warehouse full apparently so were in no rush to get them back when not needed.  If you'd seen the size of the two machines you then wonder how big the equipment at a hospital is to separate oxygen from the air to feed the supplies to beds. Looking at the video someone took of the NHS Nightingale hospital as they create it there is going to be a lot of pipework. The equivalent in a Madrid exhibition centre has oxygen tanks next to beds. Which reminds me that for my relative, in case of machine failure or power cut we also had oxygen cylinders. If we needed to use those then one could supply enough but would not last that long (we had four) and as soon as you had to use it you had to phone the emergency number. So those tanks in Madrid won't be much use for very long and they are no substitute for a ventilator. |
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Post by EspadaIII on Mar 26, 2020 5:32:38 GMT
The question of which firms will survuve the crisis is really on my mind, not least my own business, although we are confident that with our property management business, there will continue to be income and the government support of salaries should mean we can break even during the period and maybe turn a small profit.
But the small retailers? What about them? No income at all and still some expenses. And others in a chain which relies upon transactions. Buying a house? No sale, so no commission to an agent, no fees to the lawyer, no survey and valuation fee, no removal company costs, etc etc. Some agents will not have a large enough lettings portfolio to tide them over. A high street lawyer could see a huge reduction in turnover.
I sit on an RICS panel, that deals with firms unable to obtain professional indemnity insurance. Almost all the firms we deal with are small businesses with no more than two or three partners, with perhaps a couple more fee earners (many are one man bands) and their sole income is related to home purchases. If they get to our panel, they are on their death bed although some recover. But now, i cannot see any of them surviving. One firm we are dealing with now has simply shut up shop for 12 weeks. Its a one man band who couldn't get insurance anyway, the owner had a car crash two weeks ago and we needed more information before deciding how we would treat him. When we exit all this, i just cant see how he will be able restart.
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Post by Hofmeister on Mar 26, 2020 8:14:45 GMT
The question of which firms will survuve the crisis is really on my mind, There are many firms, services and businesses, some well known on the high street, that will not be there when this is all over, many self employed people will struggle to restart. Moreover the amount of money the government is spending, means we have mortgaged the country for the rest of our, and our children's lifetimes. The first major casualty of this will be major infrastructure projects, HS2 will probably go, The airline business may never fully recover, Heathrows new runway will be dropped. There will also be a fundamental change of thinking, business travel will never again reach the same levels, internally and externally, some countries may never give back the civil liberties they have taken to deal with this. The environment has improved, massively and hugely, you can see it in the sky, hear it and feel it in your lungs, we have proven its quite easy to take massive steps towards climate change, and very quickly. In short, stuff will change |
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Post by dixinormus on Mar 26, 2020 8:33:39 GMT
Holidays, travel, aviation, cruises and associated products like car rentals and hotels are probably in an irrevocable decline now and will take years to come back.
Some cafes, restaurants, pubs and retail might come back to life a bit more quickly, provided that enough people still have jobs and some discretionary income... 😳. Getting supply chains up & running again might stymie all kinds of businesses for months too.
The whole thing will make the GFC look like a walk in the park 😬.
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Post by Humph on Mar 26, 2020 11:48:57 GMT
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Post by EspadaIII on Mar 26, 2020 12:59:26 GMT
Some travel related businesses will improve quickly. I imagine countries with significant numbers of citizens or other 'connected parties' overseas will see a more rapid increase in airline travel than other countries. So I suspect Israel will come back rapidly due to strong family connections to people in the Diaspora. So too Indian subcontinent and Phillipines from where a lot of migrant workers come from.
But people travelling over the Pond from the City to Wall Street will I suspect be far less than before.
The huge building projects of the Gulf states to remove dependence on oil revenue might reduce.
In a much smaller way, we are now thinking to the future and considering how we can reduce our office space requirements. Just have fee earners working from home, with support staff based in a central office, and face to face meetings held either in the office or somethere convenient for those who are meeting...
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Post by tyrednexited on Mar 26, 2020 15:50:22 GMT
Managed to get a very good 7.5 mile walk from the door in the beautiful weather this morning (pity there wasn't a café part way round!)
The local police force (amongst others) have now put out specific instructions that you shouldn't be using your car to set out for exercise, (or walk the dog); only directly from home.
It doesn't seem to be having much effect however. The local forest car parks have all been closed, so everyone has migrated to the adjacent cemetery car park instead (which is down a private road, and clearly signed for cemetery visitors and funerals only).
On our return from yesterday's walk, a local woman we know was getting a mouthful from a middle-aged couple who she challenged for parking there (directly alongside another vehicle that was already there). I joined in the criticism, but it was water off a duck's back.
Luckily, I don't think there was an interment there yesterday, but........
....after this morning's walk, I was running the lawn-rake over the front (well, you have to pass the time somehow - I might even have to wash the cars soon!), when down the (very residential) road comes a hearse, with "walker" in front and a mourning party walking behind (nicely socially distanced, I must say). Did a double take ("is my time up?"). I had to break off and stand upright whilst they passed, then the mourning party cut through the footpath at the bottom of the road, whilst the hearse sped off round the corner on its significantly longer road journey to the cemetery.
I was just packing up when they returned, all notion of social distancing now completely forgotten.
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