Just to remind everyone discussing graphs / Irish politics / virus stats/ confinement and exiting confinement - these threads are all starting to get slightly heated.
I’ve already had to deal with a couple of messages on the subject / Stella has taken some unnecessary flak for merely trying to be helpful / I’ve had to trawl through posts to see who said what to who - and it is not even lunchtime!
It’s not happening.
Next person to piss another member off ( in a manner that I consider unreasonable - and yes, it may not be ‘fair’), will find themselves on the virtual naughty step.
And as I am not your mum, nobody will be calling you back for lunch.
Hope this is clear and for the vast majority of you, apologies that you have to waste five minutes of your life reading this.
Have a nice day people and enjoy the glorious sunshine!
Xx
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Weren’t me Miss not this time anyway
I was on the toilet at the time 
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There are some brilliant SF-ers with extraordinary practical skills with pipes, conduits, wiring, heating and insulation, cooling ducts, traffic control, covering all points of the technological climate control compass, not to mention a pest-control impresario of International repute.
Perhaps these might be co-opted to the team for the duration of the lockdown to lighten the load on our doughty but slender team?
Just trying to be helpful!
Lerts, you have been warned! 
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It wasn’t me, I did the housework, the cooking, the juggling bills and wailing about them, drinking tea and reading my French lessons, I should get a gold star.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbsGOgEKTKs&list=RDJbsGOgEKTKs&start_radio=1]
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Nevertheless, if one condenses the Brexit debate to its bare essentials (tho’ unsure that’s the right term!) what will happen on the divided island of Ireland is perhaps the most pivotal aspect of the whole farrago.
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Can’t see any workable solution apart from reunification.
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Although I’m as hopelessly naive about international politics as I’m vociferous in my opinions on global statecraft…nonetheless, I always thought (when Brexit was still just the distant rumble of a summer storm) that the Irish issue would eventually be the wasp at the picnic.
What a hopeless mess this is turning out to be!
But like @Mike_Kearney I believe and fervently hope that Irish unification (was there ever in living memory a time when Ireland was an independent and self-governing unitary state?) will be the result.
Goodness knows enough Irish blood has been shed to achieve it. And if anyone wishes to call me out as an IRA sympathiser, I couldn’t wish for a nobler accolade. I detest imperialism and racist oppression in all its forms. Including any such incidents that occur in China or South Africa, before I’m jumped on 
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Hi Mark, I have just finished reading ‘The Year of the French’ which although I didn’t think was a great book, it did seem to cover the tragedy of Ireland quite well - but I am not Irish so probably not a good judge. However a very good friend of mine from Australia recently came up to visit her roots and remaining family in Eire (is that still used?) but came in via Belfast. They hired a car and drove down the ‘two’ Irelands. Her comment was how threatening she found Northern Ireland and the proliferation of British flags seemingly on every window. It seems ludicrous that the divisions seem rooted in religious interpretations? If this is true how does one overcome this? Wherever and whenever I travelled in countries with extreme (to me) religious beliefs, I have never seen a way through this politically.
Another think I am not is religious, so again my lack of insight on a personal level leaves me stunned.
Sheer logic would say a United ireland is the only thing that makes sense, but from what I read it seems taht a return to violence is very much on the cards?
Can’t agree with you there, Peter. I see nothing noble in the IRA. Like the madmen who destroyed the Twin Towers, the cause robbed them of their humanity.
The real tragedy of Ireland is that the men of violence on both sides were an obstacle to unification.
The EU gave the Republic status and respect in the World and shaking off the shackles of a corrupt religion enabled them to become a truly modern nation. While the majority of the people of the North are probably not devout believers, the DUP still clings to puritanical ideas and Protestant myths. I believe their days are numbered. Paisley, with his rants against the “Po-op” and the “Cat licks” would sound even more ridiculous in the present context and the posturing Apprentice Boys would not survive if the Republicans could learn to laugh at them.
My hope is that, when Brexit really begins to hurt, the people of the North will suddenly realise that their differences are not so great as their leaders would have them believe and choose to be an equal part of a modern democracy rather than a “vassal state” of a diminished Britain.
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Yours is truly the voice of reason, @Mike_Kearney. Much respect 
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Which should have happened a very long time ago.
@Katherine_Davies opines “Which should have happened a very long time ago.”
Not sure from your comment what it is you think should have happened a very long time ago, Katherine. If it’s the “gypsy’s warning” issued by Cat, we’ve mostly all got yellowing print-outs of them taped to the wall over our laptops, some personally addressed and going back years, and live in fear of her arched eyebrows and beginnings of a snarl on her lips 
…it’s terrifying 
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And here’s this weeks reminder…
The complaints about certain members are already rolling in.
Pack it in. Play nicely or go and play somewhere else. And whilst I am at it, it might be nice to make an effort to be welcoming to new members rather than shoot them down or carry on making ‘in jokes’ - if you want to do that take it to DM.
That is all I am going to say on the subject.
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I haven’t been on for a while. Who’s been naughty then ?
